Protection
by TheSilverKey
Summary: Godric is set up for a crime he didn't commit, and a human woman helps him prove his innocence, getting herself and her family in a lot of trouble in the process. Godric feels like he has to protect them.
1. Chapter 1: Whatever it takes

**Hey! So yeah, this is my first fanfiction, and I hope you like it :D**

**Before you start reading, you should know that this happens before the vampires "come out of the coffin"**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated**

**Enjoy!  
**

She sighed in relief as she let herself lean back into her office chair, her eyes closed, savoring the feeling of finally having finished for the night. A couple of hours ago, she'd called her daughter to tell her she shouldn't keep dinner waiting because of her, she'd expected to do more then a few over hours that night.

As it turned out, she'd been right.

The sun had set a while ago, and it was completely dark outside, the only light coming from the street lanterns and the occasional illuminated billboard.

She locked up her office and walked out into the cool night. As she threw a quick look at her watch, she noticed that her daughter, Norah, ought to be asleep by now, smiling slightly as she remembered the disappointment in the girls voice when she'd said she'd be late that night, and she considered stopping by a bar on her way home for a drink or two, but quickly decided against it: it was already almost midnight, and she wanted to be able to get out of bed for work the next morning, so instead of walking into town she rounded the corner of her office building, walking into the narrow alley next to it, on her way to the parking lot. She'd always hated this alley: there was no lighting whatsoever and all the garbage that came out of the two buildings next to it was just dumped here, waiting to be picked up by the garbage truck in the morning. It gave the place an eerie feel, sort of like in a horror movie, like the place where the innocent young girl would unintentionally get to meet the things that go "bump" in the night. Sadly, this little alley was the only way to the parking lot, and it had been the subject of many disputes between the female employees and her boss (the male employees were to busy acting like the alley didn't scare them to have any sort of discussion), petitioning for a couple of changes to the dark alley, such as a lamp or something, to make the people who worked over hours feel safe on their way to the parking lot. Her boss always had the same answer ready though: "sorry, no can do. It's not our property, so we don't get to change anything about it". She knew that this was nonsense, just a way to shut them up, but there was nothing she could do about it, so she'd just have to deal with the creepiness of the place for now.

Suddenly, she stiffened. Had she really heard that, or was her mind just playing tricks on her? She listened really hard, trying to ensure herself that it had just been the wind, nothing else. But then she heard it again. A soft, female voice, coming from about ten meters from her, a pleading whisper "No please, Alan, don't. Leave me alone, I didn't do anything to you…." The voice sounded absolutely terrified.

She considered running back into the building so she could find a phone and call the police for about a second, right up until she heard the woman scream out in agony, almost as if she was being tortured.

No, she couldn't leave that girl alone here, not even for the five minutes it would take her to phone the police. That could mean her death, and she really couldn't let that happen.

Trying to calm herself down, she breathed in and out deeply a couple of times, hoping that it would somehow help her keep her head clear when she'd need it the most, but at the moment it wasn't doing her much good.

In order to get a view at what was happening so she could think of how she could save the young girl she started sneaking around a container that had been put down in the middle of the alley, for the first time thanking god for the unwillingness of the garbage men to put the thing up against the wall where it was supposed to be. This way, it was an amazing hiding place, and if she could just get to the other side of it without making too much noise, she'd be able to asses the situation without being seen.

Walking on the tips of her toes and trying to breath as quietly as possible, she crept towards the side of the container closest to the sound of the girl. It was getting fainter by the moment, which she interpreted as the girl getting weaker by the moment, so she tried to go as fast as possible without tripping over or stepping on anything. The slightest sound could give her away, and she knew that all too well.

Finally, she got where she wanted to be. Going to stand on her toes so she could peek between the garbage bags that were piled up on each other she strained her eyes to see what was happening in the dark before her.

After a few moments, her eyes adjusted to the lack of light and she tried to wrap her head around what she was seeing. The girl she'd been hearing all this time lay on the ground, her light blond hair spread around her head like a weird sort of halo, her mouth stretched open in a now silent scream and her eyes wide open in shock. Crouching over her was a large, muscular man with fiery red hair, and an extremely pale skin, he had his back towards her, so she didn't have to worry about him seeing her, and maybe she could sneak up to him from behind without being noticed. He appeared to have his face pressed into the young girls neck, but she couldn't see what exactly he was doing.

But she missed most of this. The only thing she could look at was the girls fair hair, which was completely drenched in some kind of liquid. When she looked a little bit closer to see what it was, she was horrified when realization hit her.

Blood.

But there was just so much of it, nobody could lose that much blood and still be…alive.

She clamped her hand over her own mouth to keep herself from screaming as she fervently looked for a sign of life from the girl.

She saw no movement whatsoever.

The girl's chest wasn't moving, she didn't seem to be blinking, it was obvious that all help would be too late for her.

She was completely frozen in shock for a few moments, horrified by the scene before her and unable to even move as much as a finger, or call out to the man to make her presence known to him, to tell him that she'd witnessed him kill the girl on the ground, and that he was not getting away with what he'd done, but before she had gathered her senses again, the man froze.

So fast that she hadn't even seen him move, he was on his feet, cocking his head to one side as if he was trying to hear something through the silence in the alley. She wondered in panic if she had made a sound without noticing so herself. Maybe she had gasped aloud?

That was when she noticed his face.

She had to stuff her fist in her mouth and bite down hard on it to keep herself from screaming out in surprise, and even more so, horror.

The mans face was completely smeared with blood, the red liquid dripping down his chin and onto his shirt steadily, but that wasn't his most disturbing feature by far.

The man looked like an animal, two long, sharp teeth sticking out of his mouth hanging over his lower lip, the blood dripping down from them as well.

Only the pain in the hand she was still biting down on kept her from thinking that this was a dream, since she'd heard that you can't feel pain in a dream, but then again, this couldn't be real, could it? She had never seen anything like that before, never seen anything this freighting. The man looked like… well, like a vampire, there was really no other word for it. If it hadn't been for the situation, she would have laughed at herself for this assumption, because vampires were just a product of an over-active imagination. Scary stories that gave little children nightmares. She would know, Norah had slept with a scarf around her neck for years to keep the vampires from biting her in her sleep. They just weren't _real._ Or at least, they didn't used to be real. She just couldn't think of any other explanation for the murderer's _fangs._

Suddenly, within the blink of an eye, the man disappeared. He just literally vanished into thin air. This brought her right back to the real world, way more effectively then the biting on her hand had, which had only resulted in bite marks. Thinking about that word brought on a wave of nausea, because she realized that that must have been what the man was doing. Biting the girl to death. She bit back the vomit she felt rising in her throat, telling herself that she would have plenty of time to throw up, once she had checked to see if she had missed the tiniest of movements on the girl when she was checking her earlier, even though she knew it would be in vain.

But before she could even move as much as an inch, a second person had appeared into the alley. She could immediately tell that he was of the same kind as the young girl's murderer had been, though apart from the fangs that he too had hanging over his lower lip, you couldn't find to people who looked less alike than the two man who had been in the alley for the past five minutes.

The boy, there was really no other word for it, he had the features of a teenager, was a lot shorter, and his hair was pitch black; though his skin was just as pale as that of the other man she'd seen. He was only wearing a long black trouser, giving her a clear view of his rather muscular chest. Irrationally, she wanted to make sure that he wouldn't be cold, to give him her coat, her scarf, something. Then she remembered the situation she was in, and the wave of what she assumed was motherly instinct disappeared just as quickly as it had come on, being replaced by caution and suspicion towards the creature (she couldn't bring herself to calling him human, not after what she'd just witnessed some… _thing _do to the poor girl who was still lying in a puddle of her own blood) in front of her She could only stare at the boy wide-eyed, as she noticed the tattoos on his back. She wasn't close enough (nor did she really want to get any closer) to see the details, but she could make out a dragon tattooed on his spine in a shade of black that contrasted sharply with his pale skin. There was another tattoo on his back, some sort of red stamp, but she couldn't imagine what that could possibly be.

He crouched over the girl, and for one horrible second, she thought she'd had to witness this boy do the same as the man before him did. Determined to keep that from happening again, she didn't want the poor girl's body to be mutilated even more, she started looking for something that she could use as a weapon to fend of the little boy. She didn't like the idea of fighting with someone that looked like a kid, especially not with some kind of weapon, but she told herself that no real kid would ever sink his teeth into the corpse of a young girl and she really needed the weapon, he might be short, but she was just plain tiny and he looked a lot stronger than her. After a couple seconds of searching, all she could find was something that reminded her of the wooden stakes they used to kill vampires with in stories about Dracula and his bloodsucking colleagues.

"Just as well" she thought to herself "if there really is any such thing as a vampire, he sure as hell is one, and this might just work" and she gripped the thing firmly with her right hand.

But when she got up from the ground and looked back at the scene in front of her, trying to think of the best way to attack, she immediately relaxed her muscles again. The boy seemed to be checking the girl's vitals: pulse, breathing, the kind of things you saw people on television in hospital soaps do sometimes.

When he realized that she was really gone, he held the girl close to his chest and whispered something to her. Something that, to their one and only spectator, sounded like an awful lot like:

"I'm so, so sorry, young one."

Realizing that the little boy did not seem to have the murderous traits his precedent had showed, she began to deliberate on whether or not to make her presence known to him. She could just leave now if she wanted to, the boy would probably take good care of the deceased girl, but then again, she was the only one who had seen the murderer, so maybe it was best for her to stay a while longer so she could give him some kind of a description, so the red-haired man could be arrested and punished properly.

She was still deliberating on this when her thoughts were interrupted, by a third person who appeared in the usually deserted alley.

"Well, well, Godric" The man said calmly, casually strolling from out of the darkness in the alley "you are the last person on this earth that I would expect this from. You, who basically invented the law of the claim"

The law of the claim? She was at a complete loss now. The head of the young boy; apparently named Godric, snapped up and he eyed the newcomer suspiciously.

"Alexander?" He asked, seemingly rather surprised, "This is your human?"

"It is, or rather," the new man, Alexander, paused for a moment as he eyed the girl's body "it was. I think her name was Emma something-something, I don't recall it clearly, but yes, I have announced her to be mine, and you seem to have neglected that claim."

She was getting more confused by the second. The two men were talking as if the dead girl had been some kind of property, as if the younger one had taken something that was Alexander's, but that made no sense to her at all, the girl had been killed, for crying out loud, but they didn't seem to care about that at all.

"You know what the punishment for biting someone else's human is, don't you? I'm rather surprised that you even took that risk" Alexander continued, chuckling slightly. She really disliked this new man, as he had apperently made a conclusion that was miles besides the actual point. Godric hadn't bitten this girl, Emma, at all, she had seen that with her own eyes. Was he really going to be punished for something he hadn't done?

"Alexander," Godric said, slowly standing up, "I did not touch this girl in that way at all, I just found her here."

Alexander just laughed, it was an eerie, hollow laugh, that didn't exude any cheerfulness at all. For the first time, she got a good look at him. He was tall and skinny, with the usual pale skin, even though he didn't seem to have fangs, but maybe they were just hidden. He looked very neat, like some kind of business man, his hair modeled very precisely and his beard trimmed to perfection, reminding her a little of her boss. Another reason she disliked him. He looked somewhere in his forties, but his eyes seemed to be much older than that, they gave the feeling that you were staring into an old man's eyes, as if they had already seen a lot of life.

This whole situation just seemed to be getting more absurd by the second.

"You really expect me to believe that? I find you here, crouching over the drained body of what used to be my human, and you didn't even bother to retract your fangs yet! You know as well as I do how that looks and especially how it will look to the magister." The man named Alexander really seemed to be enjoying himself…

As he was speaking, Godric's fangs suddenly disappeared. Oh, so they were retractable?

"Alexander, please be reasonable about this, I swear, I really didn't touch this human." Godric replied, somehow still able to sound calm and dispassionate.

That was the moment when she decided that she had to interfere. She wouldn't let an innocent man get punished and she simply couldn't let the real murderer get away with a crime like this, even though the two men didn't seem to worry about the fact that she'd been murdered, she still wanted the actual criminal to get caught.

She gripped the 'stake' she'd found a bit tighter, in case she'd have to protect herself, and started to come out of her hiding spot. Alexander continued speaking

"Oh don't worry so much, Godric, maybe they'll be nice and they'll just pull out your fangs instead of-"

"He didn't do it!" She said, cutting him off in the middle of his little speech. She'd meant for her voice to sound a lot more steady and even, but instead it broke mid-sentence. It didn't really matter anyway, all she wanted was to get the truth out there, the way it got there didn't really matter.

The two man whirled around and stared at her. Alexander in shock and disbelief, Godric in surprise and seeming concern.

"What?" Alexander roared, and suddenly he was right in front of her, only inches from her face "how could a human possibly know this?" he hissed at her.

With the greatest effort, she kept herself from recoiling. In order to keep the little boy safe, she had to be strong now"

"I've been here the entire time" she said, holding her chin up, staring the man straight in the eye "I saw it all happen, the actual murder, that is. He didn't bite" she shuddered involuntarily at the word "her at any time."

"Now that's inconvenient" the man answered in a dangerously sweet tone. Suddenly, his fangs were out, and this time she couldn't keep herself from recoiling. She took a stumbling step back "Fortunately, we can make that little problem go away."

He got closer to her again, his face twisted into an evil sort of smile, baring all of his teeth. She kept stumbling backwards, until suddenly, her back hit the container she'd been using as a camouflage. A strange sort of calm washed over her This was it, she was sure of it. She'd end up exactly the same way as the blond girl who was still lying on the ground, and as she was sure that there was nobody else in the alley, ther'e'd be no way of finding out what had happened to her. Tears sprang to her eyes as she thought of poor Norah. She'd be worried sick. Would anybody ever find her body? She hoped not. Seeing the bite marks would probably give her daughter some kind of trauma.

She heard a deep growl, and the next thing she knew, her attacker was gone, lying in a little heap on the ground, with Godric standing over him.

"She is a witness in our case with the magister. She is not to be touched" He simply said. She was sure that he'd just saved her life, although she couldn't figure out how he'd done it exactly.

"Now" he said, turning back to her with a friendly smile, not showing any fangs "I understand that you saw the actual killer?" she nodded weakly "and you saw me with the girl as well?" again, she could only nod, trying like crazy to remember how to speak.

He was nodding as well now, a look of concern crossing his face

"I'm sorry that you had to witness this" he said, sighing, and he added, eying her intently "I suppose you realize that we are not entirely… human?" she nodded yet again "What do you think we are?" better to let her guess herself first, that might just make it easier to wrap her head around. She stayed silent for a long time, almost making Godric fear that she might have lost her ability to speak after all that she must have witnessed that night, but finally, she opened up her mouth, and breathed, with a halfhearted smile on her face.

"You're going to laugh at me for this, but my first guess would be a… vampire, you know, with the fangs and all"

"So that's why you're holding a stake" he stated, reminding her that she was still holding her improvised weapon. She quickly dropped it, and the sound it made falling onto the ground seemed almost deafening in the quiet night.

"Well not exactly" she said, for some reason feeling like she needed to apologize to him "it was the only thing that I could find that I could defend myself with"

"It was a very good choice though" he answered.

Her mouth fell open in surprise

"So you are…" he simply nodded "unbelievable…" she murmured, completely stumped with this new revelation. All of the bed-time stories, the stories she'd dismissed as fantasies, they all turned out to be true…

"I know that this is a lot to wrap your head around" she noted a slight accent in his voice, although she couldn't quite place it "but I've got something very important to ask of you. I wouldn't ask this if I had any other choice, but unfortunately, things got a little out of control tonight" She glanced over at 'Emma' , offended again by the fact that her apparent 'owner' didn't even remember her full name. Out of control? You could say that again…

"You must realize that this is going to be an… unpleasant experience for you, but I would like to ask you if you'd testify at our trial, tell the magister, I think I would best compare him with a human judge, what you saw tonight. Understand that vampire politics are not like the human version, though, it's a bit more… uncivilized" He seemed to think that that word was a serious understatement, and he looked at her questioningly, as if he had any doubt at what she'd decide to do. But she had already made up her mind.

"I'll do anything to help here. Whatever it takes. I couldn't save her anymore" she nodded towards Emma " but I can at least try to bring her murderer to justice. I know I'd want that if anybody would do this kind of thing to my daughter." Thinking about Norah had been the main argument in her decision. She realized that this Emma had to be someone's daughter, so she felt like she had to do something to help.

"You'll testify?" he asked, just to make sure. He was answered by a curt nod "in a room full of vampires?" he added, she had to understand exactly what she was doing.

When she answered, her voice was so full of determination that it took Godric completely by surprise.

"Whatever it takes."

**So, what do you think? Continue the story? Kill the monstrosity while it's still young and weak? (actually, you really shouldn't phrase it like that, I'd probably get depressed :D)**

**No worries, the mysterious "she" will get a name soon :)**

**Oh, and I apologize for any horrible grammar or vocabulary you might find in my stories, I usually don't speak English, as I'm from Belgium, so try and have patience with me :)**

**The next chapter will be up soon, I'm already working on it**

**X  
**


	2. Chapter 2: Consequences

**Hey again :)**

**Thank you all or the reviews and alerts, it really means a lot to me :)**

**I hope you guys will enjoy this next chapter as well, it was really difficult for me to write, so I hope it came out okay xp**

**Enjoy!  
**

She rested her head against the cool window of her car and let her mind run over the events of the evening for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to make sense of it all. Her entire world had been turned upside down over the course of a mere 15 minutes. Something that she'd considered a product of the imagination for her entire life had suddenly turned out to be just as real as herself, even though it lived completely hidden from 'normal' society.

She was doing things she'd never done before that night. Very irresponsible things.

She'd gotten into a car with two men she'd never seen in her entire life, knowing very well that these two could kill her within seconds, just as the girl, Emma, had been killed. And yet, she'd gotten into the car voluntarily, at her own request. She realized that all of this was ridiculously dangerous, and she knew that if it had been somebody else doing all those things, she'd be yelling at that person for having pudding for a brain, but somehow, she felt safe.

She felt safe because of the boy named Godric. For some peculiar reason, she knew he'd keep her from getting harmed in any way.

But how could she trust someone she'd only met a couple of minutes ago so profoundly? She was literally trusting him with her life. Come to think of it, she was acting like a crazy person in every possible way…

Her thoughts were interrupted when Godric started talking to her again.

"I suppose you have a name?" he asked. She realized that she hadn't even introduced herself yet.

"Yes of course, my name is Anna. Anna Baxley. Sorry I didn't introduce myself before, but it didn't really cross my mind at the moment" she said, with half a grin.

"Which is only reasonable if you consider the circumstances of the moment. I'm-"

"Godric, yes I know, I heard Alexander mention your name earlier. It's very nice to meet you."

She held out her hand. Oddly, he stared just sat there, staring at her extended hand, instead of shaking it. In fact, he stared at it for so long that she started thinking she'd offended him in some way. But finally, he took her hand in his. She was a bit surprised by the icy feel of it, but didn't really want to think about it.

"I'm sorry" Godric said, giving her a genuine smile for the first time. It looked good on him, made him look healthier "vampires don't usually shake hands, we prefer not making any physical contact. It's been a long time since I've actually done such a thing."

"Oh" Anna answered, taken aback a little by this explanation of his hesitation "Well, I'm really sorry. You have to understand that this is my first time talking to a…. vampire" she had a little bit of trouble getting the word over her lips, but his casual use of it made her assume that he didn't think it offensive or ridiculous "In fact, before tonight, I didn't even know vampires existed"

"That's only logical. We try to keep ourselves hidden from society as much as possible for obvious reasons. Most of the time when a human mixes with vampires, she ends up like poor Emma."

She swallowed when she heard this, definitely not intending to end up like Emma, who had been carefully lowered into the trunk at her request. She wanted to give the poor girl a decent burial, although she wasn't quite sure about how she would handle that yet, showing up at a morgue with a drained corpse with bite marks on it's neck obviously wasn't an option, but that was a concern for later.

"Aren't you afraid?" Godric suddenly asked "you seem so… calm about all of this" he looked genuinely curious.

She thought about that for a second. The same thing had occurred to her: she should be terrified, screaming, trying to get away from these people as far as possible. But for some reason, she was letting them take her to some undefined place that was extremely dangerous, no doubt about it. She knew she might not even live to see the sun rise, but somehow, she managed not to care at all.

"I don't know" she said, finally answering Godric's question " Intellectually, I know I should be scared to death, but emotionally, I just can't bring myself to it. Maybe I'm just still in shock, who knows? Maybe, in a minute or two, everything will finally sink in and I'll be screaming my lungs out and jumping out of the car without even waiting for it to pull over or something."

Godric muttered something under his breath, and she could barely understand what he was saying. It was obviously not meant for her, but it sounded an awful lot like

"I wouldn't blame you if you did…"

She didn't comment on this little statement, and for the next couple of minutes, they drove on in total silence.

Alexander, who was driving the car, was the first to speak again.

"I would imagine you to be eager to learn all about the vampire world and it's population now, yet you haven't asked a single question so far. Aren't you curious?"

"No," she answered immediately, " not at all. I think it's best for me to know as little as possible about your kind, since I still have to be able to live my life after tonight, and that will be quite difficult if I'm afraid to go out into the dark because of my knowledge of vampires."

Alexander roared with laughter and threw his head back into his neck

"A wise decision" somehow, he sounded as if he was mocking her.

She shot Godric a puzzled look, but he was just staring at her with an expression she couldn't quite place. For a second, he looked as if he wanted to say something, but apparently decided against it and kept his mouth shut for the rest of the drive.

Anna was definitely wondering where they were going now. They were driving too fast for her to be able to read the signs next to the road, and she hadn't seen another car in at least 10 minutes now. In creepy horror movies, that was never a good sign…

Finally, after what had felt like ages, Alexander pulled to a stop and she started to get out. However, before she could even open the door, Godric stopped her

"Anna, before you get out of the car, I want you to realize something" he whispered to her, the tone of his voice urging her to listen closely "You'll be the only human here, and sadly there are some vampires who consider humans as walking, breathing snack machines. Actually, most of the vampires around here do."

She must have been displaying her emotions very clearly on her face (Shock, disgust, horror), because he quickly added, looking guilty about scaring her

"Don't worry, I'll make sure that you will leave this place unharmed, and that you will not be harmed afterwards either. Try to keep a low profile as much as possible though, and only speak when you are spoken to."

She nodded firmly, and started getting out of the car again.

"Oh and Anna" she turned around slowly, looking back at Godric "Thank you, I am forever in your debt"

She smiled at him "You're welcome."

When she'd gotten out of the car, she took a quick look at her surroundings.

They seemed to be at a parking lot, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and as far as she could see in the pitch-black night, there wasn't a single house anywhere in at least a five mile radius.

In the middle of the parking lot, a large group of people had gathered, though there wasn't a single car but the one she had came in. She wondered how that worked. Maybe the others had run all the way over here. It seemed unlikely, but then again, so had the existence of such a thing as vampires in the first place.

Godric came to stand by her side, protectively putting an arm around her shoulders

"Keep close to me, okay?" he whispered.

"Sure" she breathed, though she doubted that she'd be able to get away from him even if she wanted to. He seemed to be a lot stronger than herself, and he was definitely a lot quicker, so he wouldn't have any trouble keeping her exactly where he wanted her to be.

Together, they walked towards the group of people, but instead of stopping at the edge of the group, they kept on walking until they reached an open area in the middle of the vampires, and as they were passing through; she tried not to look any of them in the eye, afraid of what she might see there. Hunger? Thirst? Desire? Just to be on the safe side, she kept her gaze and her attention directed towards her feet with an unnecessary amount of focus, desperately trying to block the noises coming out of the vampire's throats as well.

Try as she might, she still heard. The vampires made noises that she associated with a hungry human staring at a buffet. Realizing that in this case, she was the buffet, it wasn't exactly pleasant listening to them.

They went to stand next to Alexander, who was waiting for them impatiently, and suddenly, every conversation ceased, leaving an eerie silence behind that made Anna feel rather uncomfortable. She knew that she was the main focus of every vampire present, and that was not a position she liked being in at all.

"Godric, Alexander" a voice spoke, breaking the silence, "I honestly did not expect to see you here tonight." The man who had spoken was sitting in the middle of the open area. He looked as if he was well into his forties, though Anna knew that he probably was a lot older than that, and he seemed to exude authority. This was not the kind of man you would disobey if you had a choice.

"Magister;" Alexander answered, his voice heavy with respect, and he actually _bowed_, as if he was being addressed by some kind of royalty "Godric and I had a little… disagreement earlier tonight, and we felt like we were in need of your judgment to sort it out".

"I suppose that that is the reason you brought this _human_" the disgust was obvious in his voice, the look on his face incredulous "into our midst?"

"It is" Alexander answered, he threw a look in Godric's general direction "_he_ thought that she might hold the key to solving our argument."

"Godric," the magister turned towards him, arching an eyebrow "would you care to elaborate?"

"Certainly magister," he said, unlike Alexander, he didn't bother to bow when he was talking to the man "the disagreement Alexander mentioned was about a violation of the law of the claim. He accused me of draining a human that he had claimed as his"

"Somehow, that seems unlikely, considering the person we are talking about, but I'm sure you had a very good reason to believe this, Alexander?"

"Of course I did" Alexander practically growled "I know better then to throw unfounded accusations around, especially at someone like Godric. I found him over the dead body of my human, literally with his fangs still out"

The magister seemed to be extremely surprised, and pondered this for a few seconds.

"This seems to be a rather easy case. If you found Godric with her drained body in that position, it is obvious that he did in fact break the law of the claim, and the consequences will be severe."

Anna gasped in shock. Were they actually going to blame Emma's murder on Godric? Why didn't the magister just let her speak, she could clear this whole thing up within seconds. She was about to speak up, despite of Godric's urgent warnings in the car, when the magister continued speaking.

"However, since it is unlikely that the human you've brought here is the drained human in question, I'm still wondering what exactly she is doing here. Godric?"

"We didn't know this at the time, but the human" why didn't Godric just use her name? "witnessed the entire affair. She saw the actual, draining, my arrival at the scene and my dispute with Alexander"

"And how is it possible that you did _not _notice her there?"

Alexander answered the question, and he seemed extremely ashamed of himself as he said "She was hiding behind a garbage container, masking her scent, and I guess we were too wrapped up in our own business to hear her breathing or heartbeat…"

Several vampire's laughed mockingly at this statement, as if it was a disgrace not to hear someone's heartbeat from a distance. Vampires probably had heightened senses, because with human hearing, noticing a heartbeat from that kind of distance was simply impossible.

"Be quiet!" the magister raised his voice a little bit, and the laughing stopped immediately, "regardless of your lack of attention for your surroundings, I'm wondering if the human can tell us who _did_ violate Alexander's property, if it indeed wasn't Godric"

"Why don't you ask her?" Godric asked, arching an eyebrow. The shocked gasp of the group around them informed Anna that this was highly unusual. The magister himself seemed quite shocked as well, but quickly managed to gather his composure again.

"Well, this will be a first, that's for sure" he mused to himself "but I think, considering the people involved it might just be worth it." He then directed his attention towards Anna.

"So, human, what exactly did you see tonight?" He sounded like a teacher talking to a particularly stupid toddler, and just like that, all of Anna's nervousness was gone. She would show this man that she could be of use as well, even though she was a 'mere' human.

"First of all, I have a name, it's Anna" she said, staring the magister right in the face. He didn't even blink "and I did see that Godric was not the one who drained the girl, Emma. When I walked into the alley, I saw another male vampire there, who was obviously… _feeding_" her voice was full of disgust, and the magister shot her an amused smile, "off of her. I hid behind the container wondering what I could do to help the girl, when the man seemed to hear something and he disappeared. A moment later, Godric appeared. Emma, the girl, was already dead by then. Nobody could survive losing that amount of blood" she shuddered at the memory, and felt Godric's arm tighten around her shoulder. "At first, I thought he would try to drink her blood as well, but he did not do so. He just sat there for a few moments until Alexander showed up, accusing him of 'violating the law of the claim'. That was when I decided to show myself, so I could prove Godric's innocence and maybe help identifying the real murderer." She closed her eyes for a second, feeling completely exhausted after reliving the events of the night in her memories. She hadn't expected everything to come out this quickly and easily, but she was glad that it had. This way, she didn't have to think about what happened in the alley too much.

Everything stayed quiet for a few moments, until the magister spoke again, but he directed his words towards Alexander.

"Is there any way, any way at all, that she might have been glamoured into believing this?"

She heard Godric hiss in response to this question, but she was just confused. What was 'glamouring'?

"Glamouring is a way for vampires to control a human's mind" Godric whispered, answering her unspoken question, "the magister seems to think that I planted this story in your head in order to keep myself out of trouble" he was obviously offended by this suggestion, as well he should be. Anna really didn't believe that the boy next to her would ever do anything like that, but then again, she could never be 100 percent sure, now could she? Maybe that was why she'd been feeling so safe the entire night. Without thinking about it, or even really noticing it, she started backing away from Godric, pulling herself out from under his arm. She could tell that this hurt him, but he didn't try to stop her, probably understanding her reaction.

Alexander answered the question, though he did so grudgingly "No, magister. She has not been glamoured. I already checked, and they haven't been alone for a single moment since I did so. Besides, she was carrying a stake, so neither of us would have tried anything" the crowd around her hissed angrily when they heard this "This story is entirely her own."

Relief washed over her as she heard this, and she smiled at Godric.

He didn't return it.

The magister nodded, seemingly deep in thought. After a few moments, he turned back to her.

"So it appears that you are telling the truth. A lie would not have gone unnoticed here." Probably because they could hear her heartbeat and everything "Now, _Anna_, could you tell us what the first man you saw in the alley looked like?"

She nodded her head vehemently.

"Well, he was very pale, and he looked really strong" she began. The magister rolled his eyes at her, and one of the vampires in the crowd stated, his voice heavy with sarcasm "Well, that narrows it down…" The vampires roared with laughter, but once they became quiet again, she continued her description

"He had fiery red hair and I believe his name was…. Alan or something"

Apparently, this did ring a bell with the vampires, and she could hear them mumble to each other in disbelief.

The magister spoke up again.

"Is Alan present at the moment?"

She heard someone answer that he was in fact at the parking lot. A shiver went down Anna's spine. The murderer was actually here? Would she have to face him again? Would he try anything?

"Bring him to me."

The crowd parted like the red sea, and a red haired man was dragged into the middle of the circle, kicking and screaming at the two vampires holding him by his arms. He was thrown on the ground in front of the magister, and quickly scrambled to his feet.

"Anna, is this the man you were talking about?" the magister demanded "turn around and face her, Alan"

She felt her stomach churn as she stared into the man's face, memories of the dead girl in the alley racing through her mind.

"Yeah, that's definitely him" she breathed, knowing that the magister would understand her perfectly.

Alan just stood there, glaring at her.

"You know what this means, don't you Alan?"

He whirled around to face the magister.

"What?" he yelled, his voice a mingle of anger and desperation, "you're going to punish me because of what some _human_ said? This is **ridiculous**!"

"You may think so, but you will be punished regardless of your opinions" the magister stated calmly, then raising his voice, he added "By feeding of, and draining a human that had been claimed as another's, Alan violated the law of the claim. Therefore, he shall be punished, as usual, by having his fangs removed, so that he is forced to starve until they have grown back."

Anna started to realize what Godric had meant by 'uncivilized'

"No! You can't do this to me!" The murderer sounded more scared than angry now, and she found herself feeling sorry for him, despite of what he had done. But he needed to be punished, she told herself, and if this was how vampires punished, then so be it.

"And yet, this is exactly what I will do." The magister answered calmly, before adding "Oh, and because of her useful cooperation in this trial, I declare that the human Anna is to be unharmed by any vampire, any violation of this verdict will be punished as a murder on one of our own would be punished" Most of the vampires looked shocked at this decision, yelling and screaming in protest, but, luckily for Anna, the magister did not change his mind.

Then, it seemed that somebody had decided that it was time to execute the verdict.

The vampire Alan was forced to his knees at the feet of the magister, his wrists tied together with what seemed to be a silver chain. Appalled, Anna noticed that Alan's skin started burning away where it was touched by the silver, and he was crying out in pain, his voice echoing through the darkness. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the scene before her, feeling a wave of nausea coming over her.

She felt someone nudge at her arm. It was Godric.

"Trust me, you do _not_ want to see this" he whispered, pulling her away from the commotion.

Even though she couldn't see what was happening anymore, she could still hear every little bit of it. As she walked towards the car, she could hear the terrified pleas the convict was stuttering, and even worse, she could hear the excited laughter of the spectators.

When she reached the car, she heard the crowd behind her cheering, and then, as if someone had given a sign, they fell silent.

She grabbed onto the hood of the car, turning completely white.

"Godric… I think I'm going to…" She felt her stomach churn.

A horrible scream pierced the silence of the night, one of excruciating pain.

Right then, the events of the night overwhelmed her, and grabbing onto the hood of the car to keep herself balanced, Godric hovering over her, desperately trying to think of something that would help her, she couldn't restrain her body any longer.

She emptied the contents of her stomach on the concrete, just barely missing the car.

_Wonderful._

**I hope you liked it ;)**

**The next chapter probably won't be up this fast since I've got HUGE tests on Greek and Latin coming up, so I don't think I will be able to write it in one day like I did with this one , but I'll do the best I can :)**

**Reviews are always greatly appreciated, as they can help me improve my writing _and_ my English.**

**I might be putting up a story about Godric's creation soon, if you want me to. I've worked on it a bit last week, but I just noticed that it still needs some serious editing :)  
**

**Thank you for reading my story, and I hope that you'll want to read the next chapter as well!  
**

**X  
**


	3. Chapter 3: Protection

**Hey you guys :)**

**I'm sorry for uploading this chapter a bit late, I was kinda busy this week with a bit of weird stuff**

**watching a grown man play dress-up and acting like a roman soldier, for example**

**yeah, it was _really _weird :D**

**Anywayz, I hope you like this chapter as well, it was kind of hard to write, but I hope it came out alright**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated, of course, every time I get one of those or a story alert, I squeal and do a little happy dance, my mom can back me up on that one ;)**

**So, euhm, enjoy!  
**

"Anna…. Are you okay?" Godric asked, the worry obvious in his voice.

Before she answered she drew in a couple of deep breaths, trying to overpower the sickening feeling in her stomach, and quickly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Yeah, I'm fine. That was just… a bit gross." She wrinkled her nose and tried very hard not to look at the puddle of vomit at her feet. The sight of it would probably just make her lose control over her stomach again.

"Is that, err, going to happen again?" Godric asked awkwardly, obviously not knowing how to handle the situation.

"No I don't think so. I think I sort of emptied my stomach completely, so there's nothing left to throw up anymore." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and was a little surprised to find him staring at the puddle.

The look on his face wasn't as much disgusted as it was…. _Fascinated_.

Yuck.

She could feel a second wave of nausea coming up and quickly walked to the other side of the car to keep herself from looking at Godric's expression any longer. It was just too disturbing to watch anybody look at a puddle of vomit with such fascination, even though she could sort of understand it. Being a vampire, he probably never threw up, so it could easily be the first vomit he saw in centuries.

She pulled a bottle of water from out of the car and took a couple of big gulps in an effort to make the horrible aftertaste in her mouth go away, but it didn't do much good.

"You'll be fine in the car, right?" Godric asked.

"Sure, as long as I don't make too much sudden moves, I'll be just fine."

"If that's the case, I think it's for the best if you let me drive" he answered, grinning at her from the other side of the car.

She shot him a glare but didn't protest. She was too tired to operate a vehicle anyway, so she simply opened the passenger door and got in.

When she looked up again, she saw him already sitting next to her, behind the wheel, with the key in the ignition. She couldn't keep herself from chuckling slightly.

He turned towards her, arching an eyebrow.

"What's so funny?" he asked

"Oh, nothing" she answered, smiling widely "it's just that you look way too young to even be allowed to sit in the drivers seat"

"Do I need to remind you that I am by far the oldest of the two of us?" he asked, returning her smile.

"Of course not, but try explaining that to a cop if we get pulled over. You look about as old as my daughter, and I know that she'd never get away with driving a car."

"I doubt that cops will cause us any trouble tonight. Vampires have a few tricks up their sleeves for occasions like that, you know" oh right, the 'glamouring' thing "and besides, if we _do_ get pulled over, I think that the way I look will be the least of our problems…"

She nodded, realizing that the dead girl, Emma, was still in the trunk, exactly as how they had put her there earlier that evening. A shudder went down her spine as she remembered the horrible way the girl had died, begging for her life all the while she was being killed. She regretted having to transport the girl like she was a piece of luggage, but she simply hadn't seen a way around it, and she definitely hadn't wanted to just leave her in the alley all by herself. She knew that the girl wouldn't even know where she was, but it just didn't feel right not to try and help her.

She stayed quiet for a couple of minutes. She still couldn't really wrap her head around what had happened that night, it all seemed so surreal, as if she was having a exceptionally weird dream. But she knew she wasn't dreaming. Her left arm was bright red with dozens of pinch-marks, from all the times that she'd tried to make sure she was still awake. It had hurt like hell every single time she dug her nails into her skin, and every time the sharp pain had surprised her. You couldn't feel pain when you were dreaming, so all of this, strange and unbelievable as it was, _had_ to be real.

"Godric…"She began, breaking the silence.

"Yes?"

"What are we going to do about Emma? I'd like to give her a proper funeral, but I have no idea on how I would handle that. I couldn't just drop her of at a morgue, you know…"

"I know, I know. Don't worry about her, though, I'll handle it. She'll get the funeral she deserves." He smiled reassuringly.

"Thank you" she whispered. It was extremely relieving to know that Emma would not be dumped on some roadside and left as a snack for the animals that happened to pass by there. She trusted Godric would never do such a thing.

The rest of the drive passed in silence, as both of them were completely wrapped up in their own thoughts.

When Godric pulled over at her house, Anna briefly wondered how he could possibly know her address, but she quickly let it go, deciding that she simply did not _want_ to know.

Before they got out of the car, Godric turned to her, his expression completely blank.

"Anna, there is one thing that I have to do before I let you leave. Trust me, this is not something I want to do, but the vampire law requires it and neglecting this could get both you and me in serious problems."

She could only nod.

"I really am sorry for this Anna." He continued "and if there was any way around it, I wouldn't do it, but I simply have no other choice."

He gave her a sad smile as he cradled her face in his cool hands, forcing her to look up into his eyes.

The moment they made eye-contact, a wave of calmness washed over her. She felt warm and safe, and all she could think about were the two bright blue eyes she was staring into, suddenly, they were all that really mattered in the world.

"Anna Baxley" it seemed like the voice was coming from her own mind "when you finished work yesterday, you started feeling very sick. So you decided to stay at work a little longer until the sickness had passed. That's why you got home so late. When you went home, you just walked to the parking lot as usual, got into your car and went home. Nothing else happened. You did not meet anybody"

Why was this voice telling her things she already knew? She just wanted to go to bed, get a good night rest so she would be healthy again in the morning, and fit for work.

"In a minute, you'll simply get out of this car and go to bed, sleep will make you feel a lot better. Remember, you did not meet anybody during the night, you just went straight home when you felt a little better."

"Of course" she mumbled. And with that, the blue eyes were gone.

She stumbled out of the car, still not feeling very well, and went straight to bed, falling asleep the moment her head hit her pillow.

Outside, Godric was pacing around the house. He knew that Alexander would show up soon to make sure he had done his duty by glamouring Anna, so he had to wait for him to get there.

He hadn't liked having to erase the woman's memory, but he knew that it was the only reasonable thing to do. She wouldn't have been able to live a normal life anymore with all the things she had learned over the course of one night, and if she remembered, the vampire community would be under constant threat of exposure to the rest of the world. Now was not the time for exposure, he knew that, although he hoped that that time would come soon. The vampires needed to organize themselves before they would make the big announcement, or the ensuing chaos would be unimaginable.

"So, have you done your duty, sheriff?" Alexander's voice cut off his thoughts.

"I have. If you would have been on time, you would have been able to witness it. Sadly, now you'll just have to take my word for it." He had never really liked Alexander, and tonight had only made that worse. Godric had a strange feeling that Alexander had something to do with his… suspicious position in the alley earlier that night. It simply seemed too much of a coincidence that he had walked in at the exact moment on which Godric had been looking extremely guilty of a horrible violation of vampire law.

"I'll trust you on this one. I don't think you'd mess up even more in one night" Alexander smiled widely at him, baring all of his teeth. When Godric didn't respond, he looked at the house the woman had just walked into.

"She did a good job ruining my plan in the alley tonight" he said, the anger and frustration was obvious in his voice.

"I figured you had something to do with that. You've been trying hard to force me out of my position as a sheriff, lately. I have to say, though, you seem to be getting a little bit desperate. Not even bothering to check the environment for possible witnesses before setting your plan into action is a big mistake. I did not expect that kind of error from you, to be honest."

Alexander grimaced at him.

"Yes, I guess I was a little bit too… eager tonight. But I will succeed, and you know that as well as I do. It's only a matter of time."

He stared up at the house again.

"And as for the little flaw in tonight's plan… I'll get my revenge on her soon enough" He flashed Godric a grin.

"You would never disobey the magister's orders. Even you are not that foolish" Godric answered calmly.

"Of course I wouldn't. I do not have a death wish. But, even though I'm not allowed to harm _her_ in anyway, rumor has it that she has a lovely daughter... I believe her name is Norah."

"Would you really harm a young girl because of something her mother did? Are you that vindictive?" Godric asked, even though he already knew the answer.

"I am, actually. I've heard that humans feel like losing a child is worse than losing their own life" he chuckled slightly "ignorant fools…"

"The girl lives in my area, and is thus under my jurisdiction. As a sheriff, I forbid you from harming her in any way."

Alexander took a few steps towards him, towering over him. To anybody else, this might have been intimidating, but Godric knew very well that he was a lot stronger than Alexander, so he did not back away.

"Of course _sheriff_. But remember, the moment she sets even as much as one toe outside of your area in the dark, she's as good as dead." And then he was gone, leaving Godric alone.

He sighed and sat down on the sidewalk. This certainly was… problematic to say the least. He could hear the girl's breathing and heartbeat coming from out of the house. She seemed to be sleeping deeply, not knowing what would be threatening her for the rest of her life just because her mother had helped him out. He would have to warn her, make sure she knew that she had to stay in his area, at least at night. He knew that this kind of warning would only buy her a few years, since she was bound to go out of the area at some point, but it was all he could do for her. He threw one last look at the house of the woman who had prevented his punishment that night, thanking her silently, and then he disappeared into the night, knowing that the sun would come up soon.

About an hour later, Anna's alarm clock started buzzing. She stretched herself, noticing that she was just fine, aside from a little soreness in her limbs and a bit of a gross taste in her mouth. Other than that, there was nothing left of her sickness of the day before. Concluding that it must have been something she ate, she got out of bed and went downstairs, humming to herself. She was oddly tired, and knew that it was going to be a long day, but that was nothing a decent cup of coffee wouldn't fix.

**Thank you for reading and I hope you liked it :)**

**I know it's a little shorter then the other two chapters so far, but it just seemed right to end it with that little piece about Anna's morning.**

**Don't forget to review (pretty please?) and I hope you'll like the next chapter as well**

**I won't be able to write on Friday (going to watch Harry Potter! yayy!) and the weekend is going to be a bit too busy, but I'll try to get it up sometime next week**

**X  
**


	4. Chapter 4: Interrupted

**Hey!**

**Yes, I know, I'm a bad writer for not having updated sooner :s forgive me?**

**I've just been sooo busy studying for my finals (five more to go :s), it's unbelievable :)**

**Anyway, I hope you like this new chapter!**

**Enjoy!  
**

The music slowly faded as the song ended, and her coach clapped his hands enthusiastically.

"Yes, yes, yes! That's starting to look really good. Take a minute to catch your breath, and we'll add the next move, alright?"

Panting a little bit, she walked towards one of the open windows.

She placed her hands on the windowpane and leaned outside, letting the evening breeze cool her off a little bit. The sun was already setting, making the view absolutely gorgeous, and she smiled as she stared over the rooftops of the city. It would be dark soon, and she'd practically been dancing for the entire day, but it would be worth the effort. The show was going to be amazing.

The music started again then, and she quickly moved back to her spot as the coach began to count down.

" and five, six, seven, eight!"

She moved her body to the rhythm of the song, translating the sound to movement as her coach would say. While she was moving, the room around her started getting darker and darker as the sun was disappearing behind the horizon.

About halfway through the choreography, she started a pirouette, pushing herself up on the toes of her right foot and swinging her entire body to the left.

Suddenly, something rock-hard and ice-cold grabbed a hold of her wrist, completely knocking her of balance. She felt herself fall towards the floor, face-first, and the only thing that prevented her from doing a painful and embarrassing face plant was the firm grip on her wrist that had caused her to fall in the first place.

She quickly steadied herself and straightened her back; glaring up at whoever it was that ruined her dance-routine. She found herself staring right into the icy-blue eyes of possibly the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was tall, well, huge actually, and extremely well-built. His semi-long blond hair was slicked back against his head and he was dressed completely in tight, black clothes, nicely accentuating his muscles. He was the kind of man that would render any woman speechless and that made it impossible for anyone who saw him to think of anything other than _yummy_ or _Viking. _Okay, maybe Norah was the only one who would think about a Viking when she saw the man in front of her, and she wasn't exactly rendered speechless either, but that had more to do with the situation than with the Viking-man's appearance.

She was just about to open her mouth to scold him for the rude interruption, when he cut her off, hissing

"What on earth do you think you are doing?" He sounded absolutely furious.

"I'm trying to dance, but you're making it bloody difficult" she snapped back, sounding just as furious. She wrestled in vain to pull her wrist out of his grip, but it was absolutely impossible, he was simply to strong for her. No matter how hard she struggled, he only tightened his grip a little bit up to the point where she felt sharp stings in her wrist, as if the bone was just about to snap in two. She hissed in pain.

"Eric, let go of her" a calm voice rang out from behind the blond man-mountain in front of her, but she couldn't see the speaker, since said man-mountain, apparently named Eric, was blocking the view completely.

"But Godric…" Eric protested, looking over his shoulder to face the speaker.

"I said, let her go." Godric sounded more stern now, and Eric obeyed, reluctantly letting go of her wrist.

He stepped aside to reveal a boy who looked about her age. Definitely the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was extremely pale, just like Eric, but every resemblance ended right there. He was shorter than Eric, but then again, it was hard to imagine anybody who _wasn't_ shorter than the rude Viking. He had short brown hair, and beautiful bright blue eyes. She couldn't detect a single flaw in his gorgeous face, though she felt like she'd been staring at it for an inappropriately long time before she finally managed to snap back to reality, feeling rather embarrassed. She usually didn't act this… _girlish_ when she saw a handsome man, but now, she was practically drooling on this stranger, and she just couldn't help herself. He looked like he stepped right out of some ancient Greek sculpture, _that_'s how perfect he looked.

"Are you alright?" he asked, gesturing at her wrist. To be honest, he didn't really look that concerned about her well-being, his face wore this sort of blank expression that made it hard to tell whether he was being polite, mocking her or actually concerned about her.

She grimaced at him, rubbing her wrist with her good hand so she could assess the situation herself before answering his question. Eric's fingers had left painful red marks on her skin and it was definitely going to be a bruise tomorrow, but that was all, it could have been a lot worse.

"Yeah I'll be fine. Your body guard here" she nodded her head angrily in Eric's general direction "just needs to learn to keep his hands to himself, that's all."

Godric chuckled lightly. She couldn't help but love the sound, especially since she caused it, and despite the fact that she was still trying to be angry at the two men who had barged in on her dance lesson uninvited, she found herself smiling involuntarily.

"I'm hardly in need of a body guard, and even if either of us would be guarding the other, then it would probably be me."

She arched an eyebrow. Even though Godric looked rather strong, she doubted that he could be stronger than Eric, the giant Viking look-a-like.

Godric smiled and shrugged at the doubtful look on her face

"I'm a lot stronger than I look" He stated simply

She was just about to reply when Eric cut her off:

"Godric, I hate to interrupt your little chat with Norah, here, but we came here for a reason, and if I remember correctly, it wasn't exactly making small talk."

Gordic nodded stiffly, his expression quickly returning to the blank one he had worn earlier.

"You are right Eric. Thank you for reminding me. Norah, I have something very important to discuss with you."

Before she could even open her mouth, she was cut off by her coach, who had turned down the music and was now walking towards them with a concerned expression on his face.

"Norah, are you alright, sweetie? Are these two men bothering you?" he eyed Godric and Eric suspiciously.

"Nah, they just need to talk with me for a minute" she answered, fiercely hoping she sounded casual enough to make him go away without any further questioning.

"Well, do you know them?" apparently, she needed to work on the casual-thing.

"Yes, I sure do. The tall blond one is Eric, the short one is Godric" she gestured at them as she introduced them, and they both mumbled something that sounded remotely like a polite greeting

"And why exactly are they here?" he asked sharply. He had a strong dislike for spectators during practice ('they're just too lazy or greedy to get themselves a ticket to the actual show', those were his exact words.), and today, he was even more irritated because they were keeping one of his dancers from doing the routine. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind, because 'I have no idea' simply didn't seem to be a decent excuse.

"They're old friends of mine. They just wanted to see me dance once, but they're going to come to the actual show as well." She really hoped they wouldn't mind having to sit through an entire evening of dance, because the coach would definitely go looking for them.

"Alright then", he huffed, " but they should go sit down somewhere else. I can't have you being distracted during practice. You need to focus on your moves."

"Actually" Godric's smooth voice came from behind her "I have something very important to tell Norah. If I could just borrow your dancer for a couple of minutes, I would bring her back immediately after our conversation, and she'll return to her dancing." To Norah's great surprise, her coach just blinked a couple of times, nodded his head in agreement and walked back towards the stereo.

Wow. He was letting her take a break? That was definitely a first…

Godric turned back to her

"_The short one_?" he asked incredulously, arching one of his eyebrows. She shrugged

"Well, I had to make the difference between the two of you in one way or another. The extreme difference in height seemed to be the obvious way to do it" She felt herself flush, and she mentally kicked herself for not thinking her words through earlier. Nobody would like to be called 'the short one' by somebody they'd met only a couple of minutes ago.

"Anyway", she said quickly, trying to get herself out of the awkward situation as fast as possible, "I thought we had something to discuss?"

"We do actually," Eric responded, "Is there some place a little more… private where we can talk?"

Norah just nodded, and led them towards the hallway that led to her classroom. She turned around and looked at them expectantly. She was really starting to wonder why the two men had interrupted her practice, but she wasn't exactly worried. Maybe they were just casting dancers for a show or something, though considering Godric's young appearance, that seemed unlikely.

Godric glanced around and sighed

"This is hardly the place to have this conversation" he mumbled, more to Eric than to her "It'll only make her reaction worse." Okay, she was starting to worry now. They were _definitely _not scouting for dancers.

Eric nodded in agreement, and he turned to face Norah again

"This place isn't exactly right for the kind of news we have for you", he stated, "maybe there's some other place we can go to?"

"What, you want me to go outside with the two of you?" she asked.

"That would be for the best" Eric answered.

She sighed. She would love to know what these two men wanted to tell her, but this was starting to sound dangerously alike to the beginning of a lot of abduction stories, in which the girl that went outside with the two strange men wound up being brutally murdered in some obscure forest.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that" Eric looked stumped. Godric, however, managed to keep his expression blank. Maybe he understood where she was going with this, "Even though I am rather curious about what you have to tell me, I just can't go outside with two men I don't even know. It would be ridiculous, and extremely dangerous for me, because I have no idea what you're planning to do with me. I can stand here with you because I'm safe here, I only have to scream and there'll be a ton of people rushing in to help me, but outside, I'm all alone, with two strangers, who are ten times stronger than me. I hope you can see the danger that situation holds for me, and I hope you realize that I'm stupid nor curious enough to risk my life today."

She had decided that it would be best to be polite, but honest about her unwillingness to go with them. Eric didn't seem to appreciate the effort, though.

He was downright outraged.

"You think we'd ever harm you? You have no idea! We came here to protect you, and you ungrateful little…" He continued hissing in a language Norah had never heard before, until Godric cut him off.

"Eric" he still sounded calm, but Eric stopped his rant immediately as if Godric had been screaming at him "Try to see these things from her perspective. I know that that isn't easy, but you must try to calm yourself. She is merely being wise. Surely, you must understand the danger we represent."

The words sorted the right effect, and calmed Eric down immediately

"Of course. I'm sorry Godric, I should not have let myself get out of control."

The two of them seemed to have a really strange relationship, one that Norah didn't quite understand. It was obviously nothing like a regular relationship between a teenager and a grown man.

"You're right, you shouldn't have" Godric was looking up at Eric "but it seems to me that you have a little problem with control. Hopefully, time will change that like it has done for me, my child" he said softly.

_My child_? Norah stared at the two men in front of her. There was no way that Eric could ever be Godric's child, the difference in age was just too obvious. But maybe Godric was a lot older than he looked, just has he had said that he was a lot stronger…

Before she could think this theory through, the man in question spoke to her again:

"I understand your position, and I will not try to force you into coming with us. I'll try to contact you at your house, where you feel more secure. Goodnight, Norah."

With that, he and Eric walked out of the door. She blinked a couple of times, trying to process what he had said. He was going to meet her at her house. Did he even know where she lived? Come to think of it, how did he even know her name?

She ran after him, yelling his name, but when she reached the street, she came to a dead stop.

The place was deserted .

It was as if the strange duo had disappeared into thin air, they were nowhere to be seen, even though they couldn't possibly have gotten that far.

Dazed, she walked back into the building and went to sit on the ground in the hall, leaning back against the wall.

She had so many questions, but most of them came down to one thing:

What was it that she needed to know that was so damn important?

**Sooo? What did you think? **

**How do you like the new character, Norah? Let me know what you think (hint-hint xp)**

**I'm off to study French now (yaay...) but I expect the next chapter to be up pretty soon, it's almost finished!**

**Lots of love**

**X  
**


	5. Chapter 5: A fair warning

**Hey!**

**I'm sorry for updating this late (again...), but I had a major writers block on this chapter :s**

**This chapter is the first one with a beta, treewitch703, who has been amazing, correcting all of my mistakes and explaining certain aspects of English grammar to me. I'm learning more from those corrections than I'll ever learn in school :)**

**So a big Thank You to treewitch703, and to all of you, my readers and reviewers, as well, I love you for following the story!**

**The next chapter is on the way, and it will be up as soon as my fantastic beta gives it the stamp of approval ;)**

**Oh, and though I'm a bit late, I'd like to wish all of you a happy new year!**

**Enjoy!**

**

* * *

**

She'd been tossing in her bed for hours now, unable to fall asleep with all the questions she had running through her mind. It was well past midnight; she was sure that, if Godric had ever really been planning on 'contacting her at her house', he would have shown up by now, but he hadn't. She'd started wondering if maybe the duo had just been playing a joke on her, and if she was being a fool for having waited for them; somehow, they had seemed so sincere.

What had Eric meant when he'd said that they were trying to protect her? The entire conversation had been so vague, leaving her with dozens of questions and no answers whatsoever.

She sighed in frustration. She could almost kick herself for all the fuss she was making about the strange encounter she'd had earlier that night. She just couldn't help herself,she was just too curious about it.

Suddenly, she sat bolt upright upright in her bed. Had she really heard that, or was her mind just playing tricks on her? She listened intently for a couple of minutes, but the night outside stayed completely still.

She'd probably just imagined it, or maybe it had been the wind, because it couldn't possibly be what she thought it was.

She relaxed again, letting herself drop back onto her bed and closing her eyes in what seemed like the millionth attempt at getting some sleep. She'd only been lying down like that for a couple of seconds, when suddenly, she heard it again, and there was no mistaking it.

Something was knocking on her window.

She jumped out of her bed and flipped the lights on, eying her curtains suspiciously as if something might come jumping through them. Heck, for all she knew, that could be exactly what was going to happen.

She stood still like that for about a minute, waiting for something to happen. Could it be that she'd imagined it after all? Maybe it had just been the wind blowing against the glass.

But then she heard something else, something unmistakable, something that couldn't possibly be confused with the wind.

She heard a _voice_.

"Norah, I know you're awake. Could you please just open your window?"

She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming out in fear, biting down hard into the soft flesh of her hand. It hurt like hell. _Nope, not dreaming._

"Please Norah, I know you're scared, but we must talk." The voice spoke again. It sounded rather male, but it was so muffled by the glass that she couldn't be sure.

She drew a couple of deep breaths in an effort to calm herself down and started towards the window. Her hands were shaking violently as she reached out to the curtain and yanked it aside quickly, peering into the darkness of the night.

She almost had a heart attack.

Something, some_one_ was staring back at her, his icy blue eyes piercing into hers, his pale complexion contrasting sharply with the dark blue of the sky behind him, giving him an eerie, almost ghostlike beauty.

She barely noticed any of that though.

All she could see were the two long, animal-like fangs glinting between his lips, making him look like a savage predator, hunting for prey, so different from how he'd looked earlier that evening.

She was staring into the face of Godric, mentally kicking herself for wanting him to come to her house. Hadn't her mother always said that you should be careful what you wished for? And now he was sitting on her window, looking so much like a… _vampire_. A shiver went down her spine. It was the only word she could think of that would properly describe the way he looked. So frightening, and yet somehow, absolutely beautiful.

Godric seemed to realize how he looked, immediately retracting his fangs and apparently feeling rather guilty that he had showed them in the first place. He smiled at her reassuringly.

"I swear that I will do you no harm. Please, open your window so we can talk."

She could see her hand going up to her window, without actually thinking about it. Was she really going to let him in? How could she know for sure that he meant it when he said he wasn't going to harm her? She barely even knew him. Actually, she didn't know him at all.

For some reason, she opened the window anyway, and as she felt the cold wind blowing into her room, she came to her senses again. _What was she doing?_ She staggered a few steps back, keeping her eyes on him, so she could anticipate it if he was going to try something.

"Good evening, Norah," Godric said casually, as if they'd just bumped into each other in a store or something.

"Godric," her voice came out as a hoarse whisper, and she cleared her throat before she continued, "_what_ are you exactly?" She knew she could've been a little bit more delicate about it, but this didn't seem the right time for delicacy.

"What do you think?" Godric asked, examining her face intently as if he thought she was going to lose her mind any minute now. Who knows, she just might.

"I- I don't know" she stuttered, already feeling herself flush at what she was about to say. It was amazing that, considering the situation, she still managed to feel embarrassed. " You look so much like… a _vampire_. You know, with your… fangs." She had a little trouble getting that last word past her lips. Is that what she was really seeing? Maybe they were fake or something, they couldn't be real. Vampires couldn't be real. Right?

He sighed and looked at her, the concern obvious on his face "Well, then it seems that you _do _know." He stated simply.

Her bottom jaw dropped in surprise.

"So you're really…" he nodded "And those fangs are…" he simply nodded his head again.

"_Damn…_" she whispered "I honestly did not expect that…"

She would've laughed at him for thinking she was that gullible, had it not been for the situation. After all, he was still casually sitting outside of her window, which was on the third floor of her house. How had he gotten up there anyway?

She dropped herself onto her bed, resting her head in her hands, while she was trying to wrap her head around this new revelation. So vampires were real? Apparently, they were _very_ real, and _very_ scary. She wondered what this new knowledge meant. Could Godric go out into the sunlight? Did he detest garlic? Did he sleep in a coffin? How many vampires were there? What other kind of creatures were out there that she did not know of? She had so many questions

"Are you alright?" Godric asked, softly, as if he was afraid of scaring her. He probably was, judging by his cautious expression.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just a little shocked, that's all" she said, smiling at Godric. She was amazed at herself that she could take this so lightly, even though she'd been plagued by nightmares about the blood-sucking creatures she'd read about in horror-books as a kid, but then again, maybe it all just hadn't sunk in yet, maybe the fear was just around the corner, preparing to hit her full-force the minute she fully realized what she had just been told. The minute she was 100 percent sure that she wasn't still dreaming.

"If you don't mind me asking", she started after a little pause, she wasn't sure if Godric would appreciate her asking questions about his species, but she was fiercely hoping that he wouldn't object. She wanted some answers from him, instead of all the confusing new questions that popped up whenever she saw him, "how did you get up to my window? I mean, it's on the third floor, and somehow it seems unlikely that you would've brought a ladder" she looked up at him expectantly.

"I jumped" he said, casually, as if he'd just told her that he'd went for a walk in the park. "Aha," she managed, again, she was completely stumped. _I'm a lot stronger than I look_, you can say that again… "So you have some sort of superhuman powers?"

"You could say that," he answered with a slight grin, "But, um, would you mind if I came in? It would be easier to talk that way. You'll have to give me an invitation though…" he honestly looked rather embarrassed about that.

"How so?" Norah asked, raising her eyebrows.

"We, vampires that is, can't come into a building without an invitation," he answered. So he could jump up a three story building but he couldn't enter it without an invitation? That was… actually kind of funny, for some reason.

"And if I would invite you in, would you be able to come in at any time, without my invitation?" she asked, unsuccessfully trying to phrase it in a way that didn't make her sound like she distrusted him.

"Yes, I could," if he was hurt or angry on any level, he did a hell of a job hiding it. His expression just stayed his usual blank.

"And if I were to withdraw your invitation, would you have to leave?" she questioned. His eyebrows crashed together and she had to admit it, she was asking a lot of questions, but she wanted to know what she was dealing with.

"Yes, I would have to leave immediately," his voice was still very calm and very smooth, and she hoped he felt the same way he sounded, she didn't want to offend him at all, though she knew that what she was about to say was probably going to offend him anyway.

"Godric, I'm very sorry,' she started, staring at her hands to avoid looking at him, "but I just can't invite you in. It's not that I don't want to, but I don't live alone in this house, and I can't just tell you that you can come in here at any given time without my mothers' permission."

She finally dared to look up at him again, and for a brief moment, she seemed to see that this hurt him, but he regained his composure so fast she thought she probably just imagined it, and he was giving her that blank expression again.

Before he could make a move to leave, she quickly continued:

"I do, however, want to talk to you, so if you could meet me in the backyard in a minute, we'll talk over there." After a brief pause, she added " You can sit in my backyard without an invitation, right?"

He shot her a quick grin

"Sure I can, I'll meet you there."

And then he was gone.

She walked to her closet, completely dazed, and pulled out a sweater against the cold. She was trying very hard not to think too much of her new-found knowledge, as it was absolutely terrifying. Vampires, the monsters in almost all of her childhood nightmares, were definitely real, even though they lived hidden from mainstream society. Somehow, this knowledge was frightening and fascinating at the same time.

How could it be that most people didn't notice this world that existed next to theirs? How could it be that she hadn't noticed before?

Pulling on her sweater, she walked downstairs and out into the garden. Godric was sitting in a lawn chair, his eyes closed and his face relaxed. He looked so peaceful that she was reluctant to go up to him, she hated having to disturb him when he looked so calm, but before she could decide whether or not she would call out to him, his eyes snapped open and he gestured for her to come closer.

She went to sit in the chair next to him, and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak.

"I'll tell you what you need to know now," he started. He gave her a concerned look before he continued, "and you're not going to like it."

He went on and told her everything that had happened the night before, the horrible death of the young human girl Emma, Alexander's allegations and her mother's help at the trial with the Magister . Finally, he told her about Alexander's threat, what it meant for her and how she could keep herself alive.

When he finished his story, she could do nothing but stare at him. She was completely frozen in shock, unable to move as much as a finger. _She_ was the target of a vampire?

"I'm so sorry," Godric whispered, "I should never have let your mother come with me to the trial. It was foolish of me to believe that Alexander would not try to get his revenge." "Not your fault", she managed to choke out. She was completely horrified, terrified even. But mad at Godric? Not at all.

He got up from his chair, and one horrible moment, she thought he was going to leave her like this, scared to death and vulnerable, but instead he dropped to his knees at her feet and took her hand into his. It was cold, but somehow, also very comforting.

"Will you stay a little bit longer?" she whispered hoarsely. She was embarrassed about asking him this, but she didn't think she could handle being alone right now, and her mother wouldn't understand her current state of mind, as Godric had told her he'd erased her memory. Another vampire superpower.

"Of course I'll stay," he answered softly, "until the sun comes up."

"So you can't come out into the sunlight?" she questioned, she'd been wondering about this earlier, and she figured a little diversion from her inevitably gruesome death when she stepped over an imaginary line would do her good.

"No, if I'd try, I'd burn," he answered. Somehow, she felt like he didn't think that burning was such a bad idea.

"Well then, don't try," she said sternly. He gave her a sad smile, but didn't answer her.

"Tell me more", she whispered.

"About what?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Vampires."

"Tell me what you want to know," he said smiling, "I'm somewhat of an expert, you know." He shot her a playful grin. It looked amazing on him, and she couldn't help smiling right back at him, no matter how bad her future looked at the moment.

"Do you sleep in a coffin?" she asked. The idea was a little bit horrifying to her, sleeping in such a secluded space, but maybe he didn't mind.

"Sometimes. Sometimes I just sleep under the ground. I prefer beds though, but it's hard to find a bed in a completely sun proof room." She shuddered involuntarily when she thought about sleeping underground, amongst the worms. Yuck.

He seemed to be amused at the disgusted look on her face and shrugged

"You get used to it after a while."

"Right," she doubted she could ever get used to that, "do you have a reflection? You know, in mirrors and stuff?"

"I do. That's just a myth vampires invented to be able to prove our humanity to any suspicious humans."

"Can you turn into haze?" She asked.

The question seemed to surprise him, and his eyebrows drew together

"What?" he asked, sounding rather confused.

"Well, in some stories about Dracula, they say he turns into some sort of haze and floats through open windows undetected like that, so he can bite the lady who sleeps there. It gave me nightmares for years."

He grinned at her "No, I can't do that, and I must say that I've never heard that story before."

"I can't believe I just told _you_ a vampire story" she said, laughing. It was such a weird feeling, sitting there discussing vampire aspects with Godric. It almost felt like she _had_ to be dreaming.

She stopped laughing abruptly.

"Godric, pinch me." She ordered. The vampire instantly backed away from her, looking completely shocked at her request.

"What? No!" he protested, staring at her wide-eyed.

"Why not?" she questioned sharply.

"I would hurt you!"

"Well duh" she said, giving an exasperated sigh, "that's kind of the point."

He just stood there, staring at her, completely confused.

"You want me to… hurt you?" he asked, cautiously, as if he was afraid she might have lost her mind. It wouldn't be that much of a surprise, after all the things she'd been told tonight.

"Aw, hell, I'll just do it myself already," she said growing impatient. Swiftly, she dug her nails into the tender skin on her arm. It hurt like hell, and she hissed in pain, quickly releasing her arm. She smiled up at Godric. So he _was_ real. Somehow, even though she knew that this meant the death threats and murders she'd been told about were also real, she found this comforting.

"Why did you do that?", he asked, appalled.

"Don't you know? The only way to know if you're dreaming or not is to get hurt. You can't feel pain when you're dreaming" she explained.

Slowly, he walked back to her, eying her cautiously

"You thought you were dreaming?" she nodded, feeling a bit ashamed of herself "and now you know that you are not, because pinching yourself hurt?" she nodded again "is that a good thing or a bad thing?" he asked.

"Somehow, despite all the bad news you've given me tonight, I feel like it's a good thing." She answered honestly, feeling herself flush again. She looked down at her arm, and saw that the tiny wound she'd created when she was pinching herself had started bleeding.

_Damn._

"Aren't you afraid of me?" he asked tentatively.

"No," she answered, and she added thoughtfully "intellectually, I know I should be petrified, with all the horrible things you've told me, but emotionally, I just can't bring myself to it." She was still staring at her arm, focusing on it as if it was the most interesting thing in the universe.

To her surprise, he chuckled lightly

"You know, that's exactly what you're mother told when I asked her that question."

She looked up at him then, and she immediately noticed that his fangs were out again. It made him look pretty damn frightening.

"Errr, could you… retract your fangs? It's kind of disturbing" she mumbled quietly.

With an audible _click_, the fangs were gone, and Norah released a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. Swiftly, she wiped away the drop of blood on her arm, hoping it would somehow help Godric control his impulses.

"I am sorry," he mumbled, looking genuinely embarrassed, "I have not fed in a long time."

"I take it you mean that you haven't had human blood in a while?" a shiver went down her spine as she had a mental picture of how the feeding process must look. Yuck

"You are right, and your blood it…. Well, honestly, it just smells really good" he said it in the same way she told her mother dinner smelt good every once in a while, and found herself fiercely hoping she wouldn't end up as anyone's dinner any time soon. You know there's something wrong with your life when that's your biggest wish.

The thought of her edibility brought her back to an even more unpleasant topic, and she shifted restlessly in her chair as she tried to find a way to voice her next question.

"So," she started hesitantly, "I have a vampire stalker who wants me dead now?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Is there…" she really hoped he wasn't going to take this the wrong way, "Is there anyway I can defend myself? You know, if he decides to ignore your orders and come after me anyway."

He frowned a little bit, but nodded anyway.

"Well, he can't attack you during the day, because that would burn him," he started, and she nodded, she already knew that, "so you are safe during the day. He can't come into your house either, unless you invite him in, so don't invite _anybody_ in. He could glamour another human into inviting him in, so you should just keep everybody out of your house. If he attacks you anywhere else, you can use a wooden stake, like in the stories. Make sure you stab him in the heart. It will be a bit messy, but at least he'll be dead. And then there's silver, of course. Vampires can't touch silver, it burns their flesh. It won't kill him, but if you put silver on him, he won't be able to come after you anymore. And if he tries anything, you should call me once you are safe. I specifically ordered him not to harm you, so he will be severely punished if he does." She memorized everything Godric said to her, and tucked the piece of paper with his phone number on that he handed her safely away in the pocket of her sweater. In any other situation, she would have thought it funny that vampires could actually be killed with a wooden stake through the heart, but there was nothing funny about it if a stake could be the only way to avoid a terribly painful death.

"And what are you going to do?" she questioned. She figured she'd feel safer if she knew Godric was watching over her during the night, but somehow it seemed unlikely that he'd stick around to baby-sit a human girl.

"I'm going to try to stay as far away from you as possible. You are already too involved in vampire matters as it is, without having me shadowing you every night. I'll tell the other vampires in the area to stay clear from you as well. They will have to listen, as they are my underlings."

Norah nodded. The fact that Godric would stay away gave her a mixed feelings. On one hand, she was extremely glad that she didn't have _another_ vampire stalking her in the night, and she couldn't _not_ be happy about the fact that she wouldn't have to face any other vampires anytime soon, but on the other hand, she felt very safe with Godric, as if he would protect her against anything, and she was a bit disappointed that she wouldn't get to see him again. He was… interesting, to say the least.

She got up from her chair, deciding that now was not the time to have an inner debate on the subject, and she desperately needed to get some more sleep if she wanted to act like she was okay the next morning. She smiled at Godric

"I'm going to go back to bed. Thank you for coming all the way out here to warn me. I really do appreciate it."

"It was the least I could do. Try not to get in trouble, okay?" he said, with a slight smile.

"I'll do my best," she huffed. It definitely wasn't her fault that she was in trouble.

"Goodnight Norah."

With that, he was gone. It was as if he had just disappeared into thin air.

She just stood there for a few moments, staring into the night with a stunned look on her face. Had he teleported or something? She shook herself, deciding that it wasn't important enough to worry about, and started marching back to her bedroom, even though she was almost sure she wouldn't be able to fall asleep after all she'd been told.

Strangely, the only thing she could think about as she was making her way back upstairs, was that she was going to have to come up with a damn good excuse for Eric and Godric's absence at the dance show, or else her coach would be pissed off…

* * *

**I hope you liked it :)**

**Tell me what you think about the story so far, I'd like to hear your opinion!**

**X  
**


	6. Chapter 6: Never trust a salesman

**Hey!**

**This chapter would've been up a lot sooner, but I had a little three-day city trip and no acces to a computer, so that's why I'm so late :)**

**A big THANK YOU to my beta, treewitch703, who did a fantastic job on this chapter, pointing out things in the story that I would never have thought of, which helps make my story a lot more believable. And of course, correcting all the mistakes I make against English grammar.**

**And thank all of you, for reading this story, and especially if you reviewed it. Your reviews are giving me the inspirartion I need to write this story ;)**

**Enjoy!

* * *

**Norah woke up screaming at about 6 a.m. She sat bolt upright and flipped the light on while she desperately tried to calm herself. It all had just been a really bad dream: Alexander hadn't managed to get to her yet, she was still safe, unreachable by her vampire stalker. She briefly wondered if last night might have been an exceptionally weird dream as well, but the piece of paper with Godric's number scribbled on it told another story: last night had been very real, she realized with a slight pang. It certainly didn't make her future look any brighter. She quickly put the number on speed-dial, hoping that she'd never have to use it.

If her mother had been up, she would have come running through the door by now. Fortunately for Norah, her mom was still asleep. Nothing could wake that woman up before 7 a.m. She'd sleep through a minor earthquake if it happened at 6 o'clock.

Uneasily, she noticed that the sun hadn't risen yet, which meant that the vampires could still be waiting for her to make a careless move. She shivered involuntarily at the thought of what they could do to her.

_Calm down_, she told herself sternly,_ as long as you don't leave the house, everything will be just fine. After all, they can't come in without your invitation._

With a deep sigh, she got out of bed, knowing that she wouldn't be able to fall asleep again. She didn't really want to sleep either, afraid the nightmares might come back. In her dream, Alexander had looked like a cheap version of count Dracula, cape and all, but that didn't make him any less frightening, and she fiercely hoped that she would never actually have to meet the man. She didn't feel any desire at all to discover what he really looked like.

She stepped into the shower, hoping that the warm water would help her relax a little bit. It worked for all of five minutes, and after that, she just started to worry all over again. What if her mother accidentally let the vampire in? She wasn't aware of what was happening, after all, Godric had been forced to erase her memory. Or what if either of them was glamoured? They could inadvertently let a vampire walk straight into their home, without ever even realizing it. Did the need for an invitation also apply to the dance school? Eric and Godric had been able to walk right inside, so probably not.

She felt herself panic. Would she ever be safe again? There wasn't a single thing you could do when you didn't know what your enemy looked like and he could hypnotize you into doing anything within seconds. She turned the shower off and hopped out of it, quickly wrapping a towel around herself, hoping that there hadn't been a vampire looking through the bathroom window to see what she was doing. She ran upstairs and pulled some dark skinny jeans and a black tank top out of the closet, dressing herself in a hurry. She brushed her long chocolate brown hair and walked over to her jewelry box. Normally, she never wore jewelry, but she figured having a little bit of silver on her would make her feel more safe, so she pulled out a silver necklace and a matching silver bracelet. Somehow, it did make her feel a little bit better about herself, as if she was better able to protect herself now. She gave herself an experimental smile in the mirror. The one she would be giving her mother all day to convince her that everything was alright, when in fact, everything was terribly wrong and she was about to have a full-blown panic-attack. It looked a little odd, but it was the best she could manage, so it would just have to do for now.

At seven o'clock, her mom left for work, and Norah was relieved that she could finally drop the act. Her mom hadn't bought it for one second, but there was no way on earth that she would be able to guess what was troubling her daughter, so she'd just blamed it on pre-performance nerves before the dance recital, and she'd let it be.

A couple of hours later, the doorbell rang. If Norah had had even the tiniest amount of experience with the kind of situation she was currently in, she would never have opened the door. She would have just ignored it, she would have acted like she wasn't at home and she would have waited for whoever it was that was on her doorstep to go away.

She didn't have any experience though, and it was broad daylight outside, which made her feel more secure than she ought to be feeling.

She opened the door.

The man looked like he was in his forties. He had neatly combed blond hair, a perfectly fitting dark blue suit and a 1000 watt smile on his face. He was holding some sort of vacuum cleaner, in his right hand. A salesman.

"Hello miss!" he said, beaming at her, "you wouldn't by any chance be interested in buying one of our amazing vacuum cleaners, now would you?"

She should have noticed something was off then, she should have slammed the door shut in the man's face, she should not have stayed at the door, trying to be polite. It was the foolish move the vampires had been waiting for.

"I'm very sorry sir, but my mother is a bit busy at the moment," she said, trying to be as polite as possible.

"Oh, even better! This way, you can surprise her with a fantastic gift!" his smile had only gotten wider "here, let me demonstrate the product for you." He tried to push his way past her into the house, but she stopped him, finally getting a little suspicious.

"Sir, I'm afraid I do not have the money to pay for the vacuum cleaner. I would appreciate it if you would move on now," she said sternly, trying to keep her voice level, even though it felt like her throat was being squeezed shut with fear.

The man's smile disappeared immediately.

"Now girl, I was just trying to be polite about this," he said, glaring at her. Suddenly, he shoved her hard, pushing her back into the house. She was too surprised to fight back, and when she finally realized what was happening, it was already too late.

He was already inside.

A wave of panic hit her. She wasn't ready to die, definitely not in this way. She did the only thing she could think of: she kicked him in the stomach as hard as she could. The man doubled over in pain, she turned around and ran away from her attacker as fast as she could. She practically flew upstairs, to her bedroom and it wasn't until she slammed the door shut that she realized how stupid she'd been. You don't run upstairs when there is somebody in your house who wants to murder you, there aren't any safe escape routes in a room on the third floor. There's only a window, and a drop that would kill anybody who even tried to escape through that window. She cursed herself for not having thought of that before she started running like an idiot.

Suddenly, her attacker's voice boomed through the house

"I'm going to find you, little girl, and when I do, I'm going to tear you apart!" seconds later, she heard him stomping up the stairs, not even bothering to be stealthy anymore.

She desperately tried to calm her breathing, hoping that being quiet would give her a little more time to think. She could hear the fake salesman stomping around on the first floor, searching every room for her before stomping of to the next floor.

_Be calm,_ she told herself in an effort to gather her senses so she could think of a way to escape, or at least to defend herself, _you're not going to die today, not if you can help it._

She glanced around her room, looking for something that could help her, and suddenly, her eye fell on a small clay statue she'd gotten for her birthday. Her uncle had made it for her. It represented a horse and it's rider and was glazed in the colors of the sea, blue and a strange sort of green. It looked hard and heavy enough to her.

She ran over to her desk, picking up the statue and weighing it with one hand. Yes, that ought to do the trick. Trying not to think too much about what she was about to do, she clutched the part that represented the rider firmly with both hands, holding the statue like it was some sort of prehistoric club. She climbed up on her bed and waited for the attacker to come ramming in through the door. She was not about to go down without a fight, and the blond man was going to feel that.

She heard him stomping up the stairs towards her room, and strangely, she didn't feel scared, or even nervous, all she felt was a cold determination to stay alive, or at least do as much damage as possible before she died.

The man was standing before her door now, she could hear his heavy breathing, he was already tired from tearing apart the previous two floors. Norah knew that that would work to her advantage, and she held the statue up high above her head, tensing every muscle in preparation for what was coming.

The moment the blond man stepped through the door, she swung the clay statue around, letting it crash down hard on his skull.

He never even saw it coming.

The tiny statue shattered when it made contact with the man's head, apparently, it hadn't been as sturdy as it looked, but it had done the job.

The blond man crumpled onto the floor with a deafening thud, and then everything went quiet again.

_Shit._

A wave of panic and nausea hit Norah. What had she done? Was the man dead? She quickly jumped of the bed and crouched down next to the limp body of her attacker, frantically checking his vitals: pulse, breathing,… She almost cried from sheer relief when she realized that the man was out cold, but still very much alive. A little stream of blood had made it's way through the man's thick blond hair and started dripping on the floor of her bedroom.

"Oh, Goddammit…" she muttered to herself, as she tried to figure out what to do next. Call Godric? The sun was still up, and wouldn't set for a couple of hours, so that was not an option, he would probably be asleep anyway. Finally, she decided that she had to tie the man up, make sure that he wouldn't try to kill her again, once he came to his senses. She frantically searched her drawers for some thick rope, and eventually settled for the iron wire she used for some of her art assignments in school. She pulled his hands on his back and wrapped the wire around his wrists a couple of times, silently thanking her mother for having sent her to a couple of sailing camps when she was young. At least now, she could make a decent knot that would keep her new prisoner tied up. She repeated the process on the man's ankles, and then shoved him a little farther into her room, so he wasn't blocking the door anymore.

Suddenly, she had an idea, and she searched the pockets of his vest. Sure enough, there was a small pistol tucked into his right pocket. A wave of nausea hit her as she realized that the gun had been meant for her, but she was happy that she'd found it, and she put it under her pillow, so he wouldn't find it too quickly, even if he did manage to escape his improvised handcuffs.

She started pacing around her room, completely unsure of what she was supposed to do now. She was damn sure that she could go to jail for what she had just done, hitting a man over the head with a small statue, that would probably be considered battery, or assault, or something. Maybe even attempted murder. Besides, she didn't think Godric would appreciate it if she called the police. What if they investigated too thoroughly? What if somehow, they ended up discovering the secret society of the vampire world ? What if Alexander would try to get his accomplice out of jail? It was all too clear to her that he didn't mind stepping over a few human bodies to get what he wanted. No, she couldn't let anybody else get involved in this mess. It was bad enough as it was.

"Shit, shit, _shit_…" she muttered to herself, trust her to get into this kind of trouble, absolutely absurd trouble that she had no idea how to handle.

She noticed that her prisoner was lying in a bit of an awkward position on the ground, so she propped him up against the couch in her room, and went back to pacing.

Suddenly, she realized something: in a couple of hours, her mom would come home, and the house probably looked like a bunch of angry elephants had stomped through it. On top of that, she had an unconscious man tied up in her bedroom. That would look suspicious, to say the least, and there was not a single reasonable explanation that would fit that kind of situation. Finally having found something she could do, she rushed downstairs, after making sure that the man on her floor was still unconscious and tied up decently, and pulling the gun out from under her pillow in case she'd have to defend herself again. She started to assess the damage he'd done in his frantic search for her.

It was terrible: he'd been throwing things around, breaking stuff, pulling all of the clothes out of her mother's bedroom closet to see if she had been hiding underneath them. The house looked like there'd been twenty guys looking for her, instead of just one.

She started to restore the house to it's previous state as much as possible, hiding or fixing the things the fake salesman had broken, putting the furniture back where it was supposed to be, and re-folding all of her mother's clothes. She found that focusing on these things, trying to remember how the house had looked before the assault, was helping to keep her mind off of the mess _she_'d made. Knocking a man out cold in her bedroom, even though she thought he deserved it, was not something she knew how to handle, so she found the diversion fantastic.

It took her less time than she'd expected to make the house look decent again, and an hour later, she found herself on her knees in her own bedroom, scrubbing the floor with bleach in an effort to remove the bloodstains the man had left.

She heard something move behind her, and she jumped to her feet immediately and whirled around. The blonde salesman was slowly regaining his senses, and he was not happy with his current position.

"You stupid little bitch, you tied me up!" he growled furiously.

"Well yeah," she said, her voice calmer than she thought it would be, and she was very proud of that, "You said you were going to tear me apart, so I figured I'd better keep you from trying that again."

"You knocked me out cold!" he hissed.

She nodded: "I did, with a statue," she pointed at what was left of the shattered statue. It was a shame that it was broken, but then again, it had most likely saved her life, so a broken statue seemed like a reasonable price to pay.

"You crazy bitch!" the man was yelling at her now, his face red with fury.

"You are the one that attacked _me,_" she stated calmly, "You have absolutely no right to be angry with me, I was merely protecting myself" she was extremely proud of how calm and in-control she sounded, even though she was far from actually being either, "Now, tell me something, have you been sent by Alexander?" She thought she already knew the answer, but figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

The man stubbornly kept his mouth shut, unwilling to give her any information. Suddenly, she had an idea, and she casually picked up the gun she'd put on her bed, holding it experimentally. She'd never actually held a gun before in her life, and it frightened her senseless that she was holding one now. What would she do if it accidentally fired? She knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she actually killed the man in front of her, even though he'd tried to kill her first. She worked hard to keep all of this from showing on her face, keeping the appearance of someone who is completely in control of the situation. A quick glance in the mirror told her she was pulling it off a lot better than she'd expected.

She smiled sweetly at the man before her. He had turned a sickly shade of pale, and the sweat was beading on his forehead. Realizing she scared him to death, she decided to take advantage of the situation.

"Now will you tell me?" She asked, still managing to sound calm. She knew that any minute now, she'd accidentally let the act slip and show him how she was really feeling: scared, sick, desperate, a little bit depressed about the fact that someone wanted her dead and panicking completely.

"He'll… he'll kill me if I tell you," the man said, his voice trembling with panic. Norah felt sorry for the man, this whole ordeal obviously was not his own idea, and he was only following orders because he was scared of dying. But then again, she reminded herself, he did just try to kill her, and she should not feel sorry for murderers, especially not when they were after her. That could be a fatal mistake.

So, instead of showing compassion, she pointed the gun at his face, holding it as if she was used to it, even though she was silently praying that it wouldn't accidentally fire and kill her hostage, and raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, okay!" the man almost yelled, completely freaking out, "I'll tell you what you want to know, just please don't shoot me!" gratefully, Norah lowered the gun and carefully put it down next to her. She looked at the petrified man in front of her expectantly.

"Yes, Alexander did send me," he said, calming down now that there was no longer a gun pointed at him, "he told me to take care of you, because he didn't want to get his hands dirty."

Irrationally, she was hurt for a second because Alexander hadn't bothered to come and kill her himself, until she realized that she was lucky he'd sent a human: there was no way that she could have knocked a vampire out with a little chunk of clay.

"I thought Godric had forbidden him from harming me?" she questioned.

"Yes, yes," the man said eagerly, "that's another reason why he sent me. He said he'd go unpunished if I did it, and he promised me that he'd make sure that I wouldn't be harmed after I killed you."

Norah rolled his eyes at him

"And you believed him?" she asked incredulously. She hadn't even met Alexander yet, and even she knew enough about the vampire to know that he couldn't be trusted under any circumstances.

The man looked a bit embarrassed, but kept his mouth shut.

"What's your name?" she asked softly

"Michael Ridgeway," he muttered.

"Well Michael, I'm going to call Godric to tell him what happened today," she picked the gun up again. She really didn't trust this man, and she had seen enough police series to know that you should never let down you guard around an enemy.

Michael managed to become even paler, something Norah hadn't even deemed possible. He looked genuinely petrified.

"The sun hasn't set yet," he managed to choke out, "there's no way that you'll be able to reach him at this hour. He'll be asleep."

"Then I'll leave him a message on his answering machine. I want to make sure he knows what has been going on before Alexander has a chance to come pick you up." She glared at the man as she picked up her phone.

"No!" Michael was screaming like a little girl now, "he'll kill me for sure! You can't do that to me! I'm sorry I came to murder you today, but I was only doing what I was told to do!" The man was having a full-blown panic-attack, hyperventilating and everything, and Norah couldn't help but feel sorry for Michael. He had just been trying to save his own ass by killing her, something she could understand on a certain level. What she didn't understand was Alexander's sending this particular man. Michael Ridgeway was nothing like the tough guy she would've chosen to 'take care' of anybody. Especially not somebody who was under vampire protection. He was just a big coward, telling her everything she wanted to hear as soon as she did as much as pick up a gun. She turned back to him.

"Why did Alexander send you?"

"I already told you!" he answered, "He sent me so he'd go unpunished."

"I know, but why didn't he send someone more… experienced with this kind of stuff?" _murdering a defenseless teenage girl…_

"Err…" he started. He seemed genuinely embarrassed about this, "He said you wouldn't even put up a fight. He figured it wouldn't be necessary to send one of his… permanent employees. He wanted to spare them the trouble of having to go after a teenager."

"Oh…" That actually made sense, in a strange, twisted way. He would want to have his highly skilled _assassins_ to be working on more dangerous cases. "So how did you end up being the one to murder me? Are you one of his employees?"

"Oh god no!" he was shaking his head humiliated, "I, uh… owe him a lot of money."

"How so?" Norah couldn't imagine how much money you would have to owe somebody before you agreed to go kill a teenager for them.

He hung his head in shame.

"I used to be addicted to V, you know, vampire blood," you could get addicted to _vampire blood_? Who would even want to drink that in the first place? Yuck. "and I got in a lot of trouble because of it. He promised to let me off the hook if I did this for him: no punishment, no more debts…"

"Aha," Norah didn't even want to think about the kind of punishment Michael would've gotten. "And, um," she knew she was going to regret having asked her next question later, but she couldn't stop herself from asking it anyway, "What exactly were you planning to do with me?"

Michael's eyebrows drew together as he looked at her in confusion.

"Alexander told me to chase you into the garden, and to shoot you there." She winced, "He said he'd take it from there. Make it look like you just… disappeared. Why would you even want to know that?"

She shrugged. She really had no idea why she'd asked that. She wished she hadn't.

Deciding that she already knew more than she should, she turned her attention back to her phone.

"No!" Michael was sobbing hysterically, "please, please just let me leave. I swear I won't come after you again! I don't want to die"

Well, neither did she, but that hadn't stopped Michael from coming after her, had it? She sighed and forced herself to smile at him. He was just trying to be safe from Alexander, the same thing she was doing. He was only taking it much further than she was. She'd definitely never kill anybody to save herself.

"Take a deep breath Michael," she said, in what she hoped to be a reassuring tone, "I'll tell Godric not to harm you, all right?" She didn't think for one second that Godric would take orders from her, but it was worth a shot, and it seemed to be calming Michael down, "You'll be just fine, as long as you don't associate with vampires again," she said, looking him in the eye to make sure he got the message. By now, she was well aware of the fact that vampires and humans didn't mix well, most of the time, the human ended up dead, or hurt. If she'd had any choice, she'd like to stay away from vampire matters as well.

Michael was nodding fervently "Never again," he said firmly, "I'm going to stay away from the bloodsuckers from now on."

She smiled at him and called Godric, not taking her eyes off of Michael. Even though it seemed unlikely, he still might try to do something stupid, so she held a firm grip on the gun she'd taken from him.

She hadn't expected Godric to be awake, but he answered on the second ring

"Hello?"

"Oh, hey Godric, I hadn't expected you to be awake before sunset."

"I'm an old vampire, I can wake before the sun has set," he stated. There was a long pause as she pondered this. How old would Godric actually be? Would he mind her asking?

"Is something amiss?" Godric asked, breaking the silence and pulling her out of her thoughts.

"Oh yeah, right," she said hurriedly, "something's wrong alright. Someone came to my house today." She said, eying Michael, who was still tied up on her floor. He'd need some kind of medical attention soon: he was becoming paler and paler by the minute, and it looked like the wound on his head was still bleeding lightly.

"Alexander sent somebody during the day?" Godric asked, sounding completely stumped.

"Yep. His name is Michael Ridgeway. He pretended to be a door-to-door salesman, selling vacuum cleaners."

"And you let him in?" Godric sounded a bit angry.

"No, of course not!" she snapped. Did he really think she was that stupid? "He sort of forced himself in. He _is_ a grown man you see, and I'm not exactly strong, so it wasn't that hard for him." She glared at the man in question, who mumbled quietly "I said I'm sorry…" She huffed and focused back on her conversation with Godric.

"Well, you sound all right, what happened?"

"When I realized what was happening, I ran upstairs to my bedroom," Godric groaned, "Yeah, I know, that was stupid, but will you hear me out? I found a little statue in my room, and when Michael barged in, I hit him over the head with it."

"You… hit him over the head?" Godric sounded absolutely incredulous.

"Yeah, knocked him out cold." She heard Godric mutter something in another language, but decided that simply ignoring it was the best thing to do at the moment.

"And then I tied him up with some wire I found in my room, and I took his gun from him and cleaned up the mess he made. So now here I am, in my room, with Michael, who just came back to his senses. He's still tied up, and I think he's desperately in need of some kind of medical care, his head is bleeding and he seems to be getting worse by the minute. I have no idea what to do, I don't know anything about first aid and I can't think of a good story to explain the situation to the paramedics, so I can't call an ambulance…"

There was a long pause

"You want to help him?" Godric asked quietly.

"Well sure, I know he tried to kill me, but he was only doing it because Alexander was forcing him. I don't want him to die because of me…"

There was another pause before Godric started talking again:

"I'll be there as soon as the sun sets. Give him some water, disinfect his wound and make sure his head is stable. If it moves too much, that could worsen the injury. Goodbye Norah."

He hung up. She stared at the phone incredulously. He was a doctor now, too? Godric, the vampire-doctor. She chuckled a little at the idea, but quickly forced her attention back to the situation at hand.

"He'll be here as soon as the sun sets," she told Michael, "he also gave me instructions on how to keep you alive, so I don't think he's planning on killing you." She smiled reassuringly at Michael, and he gave her a weak smile back. Not wasting any more time, she started doing as Godric had instructed her to do. She forced Michael to drink a glass of water and went to fetch the first aid kit in the bathroom. While she was working on the head wound, she suddenly heard the sound she'd been dreading all afternoon. The front door slammed shut, and a voice called out to her from downstairs.

"Norah, I'm home!" Her mother was back from work, and here she was, with a tied-up adult male in desperate need of a doctor on her floor, a loaded gun on her bed and a shattered statue with blood all over it on the ground. If her mother would just stay downstairs, everything would be fine, she'd cleaned the mess Michael had made up pretty good, but Norah could already hear her mother coming upstairs, wanting to make some small-talk with her daughter about her day, as usual.

Somehow managing to think clearly, she flew over to her radio and hit the play button, making the music drown out the slight noises of pain and discomfort Michael made every once in a while, she picked up the gun and quickly turned to Michael, who was giving her a confused look.

"My mother's home, and I've got to act normal," she said, raising her voice slightly to make herself understandable over the music, "So, you stay put, don't make a sound, and don't you dare move your head!" she stabbed at him with the gun, to make sure that he wouldn't misbehave while she was out of the room. She swiftly slipped on a sweater and tucked the gun into its pocket, not trusting Michael to be alone in the room with a gun within reach.

She shot her reflection the same experimental smile she'd given herself that morning, and oddly, it looked a lot more natural now, even though everything was even more messed up than it had been a couple of hours ago. Satisfied, she slipped out of her room a slammed the door shut behind her quickly, so her mother wouldn't be able to look inside.

"Hey mom!" she said happily, with a huge grin on her face, "how was work today?" she asked, making sure to stay in front of the door so her mother wouldn't be able to go inside.

"Oh, it was just fine. We finally got a lamp in that creepy alley next to our building. Turns out that somebody discovered a huge puddle of blood in there, and so our boss decided that is was time to keep his employees safe and give us a bit of lighting."

"A puddle of blood?" Norah asked, putting just the right amount of horror and surprise in her voice. She was quite proud of her acting today.

"Yeah, " her mother said dismissively, "I'm thinking it's just an animal. Wouldn't be the first time that a dead possum or rat turns up in that alley."

Of course, Norah knew very well that it wasn't animal blood in the alley, and her mother would've known as well if she hadn't been glamoured into forgetting it.

Norah did her best to look relieved, as if she believed her mother, and yanked her smile back into place.

"So, what've you been up to today?" her mother asked, changing the subject.

"Oh, not much…"_ Running for my life, knocking an adult male unconscious with a statue of a horse I got for my birthday and tying him up with a bit of wire. Now I'm just nursing his wounds so he won't die and at the same time trying to keep him from getting to the gun I have in my pocket._ "I've just had a bit of a lazy day." She said, smiling for all she was worth.

Her mother eyed her suspiciously. Nothing ever got passed that woman.

"What's wrong, Norah?"_ there's a vampire who wants to kill me, and he's sending humans after me to do the job for him because he doesn't want to get punished._

"You know, just nervous about the dance recital," she answered with a slight smile.

"You'll do just fine, sweetie," she could tell her mother didn't believe her one bit, but she loved her for letting it go, "Anyway, I'm going to cook dinner. What do you want to eat?"

"Something delicious," Norah answered with a playful grin. Her mother rolled her eyes at her, it was her standard response to that question, and her mother absolutely hated it because she never got a decent suggestion,. Her mother walked back downstairs, and with a sigh of relief, she walked back into her room. Michael was still sitting exactly where she'd left him, and he was still conscious, though barely. She went to put the music a bit softer and placed the gun back on the bed, happy to have it as far away from her as possible, before turning back to Michael.

"How'd it go?" his voice was very weak and quiet.

"She knows something's off," she said, sighing, as she got back on her knees next to Michael and started working on his wound again, "But she doesn't know what. It would be impossible for her to guess it right anyway."

Michael grinned lightly.

"How did you know she wasn't here anyway? I told you she was busy. Were you planning on killing her as well if she happened to be home?"

"No," Michael muttered, "I've been watching your house all day. I saw her leave."

"Oh." So not only did she have a vampire stalker, there were humans watching her house as well. There was a long pause as she wondered if he'd brought binoculars to his little spying adventure.

"Thank you," Michael mumbled softly, breaking her thoughts.

"For what?" Norah was genuinely surprised, "for hitting you over the head with a statue and threatening you with a gun?"

"No, for not killing me. You could have done so, and you have a right to do so as well, after what I tried to do to you, instead, you sit here making sure that I don't die."

"I'm sure you would've done the same for me."

"No, I wouldn't have. I would have shot you in the head without thinking twice about it, because only then I'd be sure that I was safe."

She rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm sure that I'm safe as well. You're tied up and practically too weak to even raise your arms, and I have a gun. Not much of a threat, huh?"

"Good point," he sighed. She dropped her hands back to her side.

"There, that's all I can do for you know, my first aid skills aren't exactly fantastic. Now you just need to stay awake until Godric shows up," she glanced through her window. The sun was just a thin orange line on the horizon, "which will be any minute now."

They sat for a little while in an uncomfortable silence, until suddenly, they heard a light thud right outside the window. It was full dark outside, and Godric was sitting in front of her window, just like he had yesterday, only his fangs weren't showing now.

Norah jumped up and threw the window open.

"Oh, thank god you are here! I really had no idea what to do…" she smiled up at him, and stepped aside to reveal Michael, who was still on the floor, propped up against the couch "What do you think?" She questioned tentatively, "Will he live?"

His eyes scanned the limp body in her room for a second before turning his attention back to Norah "He will. You did a good job on his wound."

She smiled at him in relief "Thank god," she sighed, "I was so scared that he wouldn't make it…"

There was a bit of a pause, and Godric started looking a little bit uncomfortable.

"What?" she questioned.

"Well… Can I come in now?" Godric asked, sounding a bit insecure.

She stared at him blankly for a couple of moments. Of course he'd have to come inside to get Michael, but did she trust him enough to give him an invitation? After what had happened today, her entire mind screamed at her that she should never let anybody besides her mother enter her house anymore, and definitely not a vampire. She just didn't feel up to it yet.

After a long pause, Godric started talking again.

"If you're uncomfortable with it, you can just take him out into the garden, and I'll take him from there." He said softly. She smiled at him, grateful for the fact that he understood her hesitation, and nodded.

"See you in a couple of minutes" she said, and with that, he disappeared.

She turned her attention back to Michael.

"I'm going to untie your feet, but don't try anything stupid, okay?" he nodded weakly, and she set to work.

"You think you can walk?" she questioned, once she was finished.

Michael shrugged, "We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?".

She helped him up, quite an effort since his hand were still tied together behind his back, and supported him as he set a couple of experimental steps around her bedroom. He smiled triumphantly at her.

"I think I can handle it."

"Good."

Together, they started to walk down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. Norah could hear the television in the living room, which meant that, if they would be quiet enough, her mom would never realize what was happening. After a couple of minutes of stumbling and struggling, they finally reached the garden. To her great relief, Godric was with them instantly, picking up Michael and carrying him a little bit farther into the yard, so they would be out of view from the surrounding houses. Norah hurried after them, so she could talk to Godric before he left.

"Godric," she called out, and he turned around, looking at her expectantly, "Could you like… not kill Michael?"

"You want to save him?" he asked, raising both of his eyebrows in surprise.

"Well, yeah, he didn't really want to kill me, he was just doing it because Alexander was threatening him, besides, nobody deserves to die at such a young age. So I'd appreciate it if you'd make sure he isn't harmed." She didn't know if it was really her place to be asking that sort of thing from the vampire, but hey, she'd almost been killed today, she could ask for a little favor, right?

Godric nodded "all right then, if you wish him unharmed, then I will see to it that nobody touches him."

"Thank you," she said, smiling with the relief of knowing she wouldn't be responsible for another humans' death, she turned to Michael, "And no more vampires." She said sternly.

"I promise," he breathed. She was happy that she couldn't see his face in the darkness, as she was sure he looked absolutely horrible, because of her. She knew he deserved to be hurt for what he'd been trying to do, but somehow, she felt sorry for the man.

"Goodnight Norah." Godric said, preparing to leave.

"Goodnight Godric. And I don't ever want to see you again, Michael." She might have helped him, but that didn't mean she wanted to be friends with the man who'd come to her house with the intention of killing her. Godric vanished within the blink of an eye, and as she walked back towards the house, she realized the full extent of the trouble she was in. She'd never be able to trust anyone anymore, human or vampire, and she'd never be safe again, no matter where she went.

* * *

**Let me know what you think!**

**I had a little bit of trouble on how Norah should react to the salesman (before she knows he's about to storm into her house and try to kill her :)). My beta pointed out to me that American kids are taught how to react to that kind of stuff in school, and she helped me correct Norah's reaction, because I was making her react too politely ;) Since we don't learn how to deal with strangers at school in my country (or at least in my elementary school), I would appreciate your opinion on that bit. Tell me: how would you react? Personally, I would politely tell the man that my parents aren't home and that I don't have the money to buy his product. Apparently, that's a baaad reaction ;)**

**The next chapter will be updated soon: it's almost finished. **

**X  
**


	7. Chapter 7: Alone in the dark

**Hey!**

**As usual, my beta, treewitch703, did a wonderful job. So a big THANK YOU to her :)**

**This chapter is a little bit shorter than usual, but I hope you guys like it!**

**Enjoy!

* * *

**

She practically ran into him the next night. Norah'd been heading towards a really cheap Thai restaurant, her hands tucked deep into her pockets and her eyes on the ground. She hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings at all, just focusing on placing one foot in front of the other as quickly as possible, without breaking into a sprint. It was already full dark outside, which made her extremely nervous, and anxious to get from one safe place to another as quickly as possible. Alexander wouldn't be so stupid to attack her in a public place, at least, that was what she was hoping.

She didn't like being out on the street all by herself, but she had to get something to eat before she went to dance practice. She'd put on all the silver she could find in the house, and she'd tucked the gun she'd taken from her attacker, Michael Ridgeway, deep into the bag she used for practice in anticipation of a solo trip through the dark streets . None of her precautions made her feel much more secure.

Bumping into a cold, rock-hard vampire was a lot like running into a brick wall. She stumbled back, knocked off balance by the collision. She gasped as she realized what had happened and grabbed the silver necklace she was wearing. She was ready to tear it off and use it as a weapon in case she had to defend herself.

She exhaled as she finally recognized the vampire she'd run in to.

"Oh," she said, relaxing, "Hey, Godric."

"Good evening Norah. I was looking for you."

"What for?" she questioned.

"What are you doing out on the street, all by yourself, and at night?" he said, ignoring her question completely. His tone was extremely disapproving.

She resisted the urge to tell him that it was none of his business. After all, he was just trying to keep her safe.

"Going to get something to eat, actually," she replied, trying to sound as polite as possible, "Would you mind walking with me? I don't really have a lot of time right now."

Godric simply turned and kept pace with her. It was very strange, she couldn't even hear his footsteps.

There was a long and awkward pause as Norah waited for him to speak again.

"Errr…" she started, trying to break the silence, "you said you were looking for me?"

"I was," he let out a little sigh, "we need to talk about what happened yesterday."

"Oh, of course," she paused for a second. There was something she needed to know. "What happened to Michael yesterday? I mean, after you took him with you?"

Godric shot her a quick sideways glance. He looked a little bit… _amused_.

"Do not worry about Mr. Ridgeway. He is safe."

"Well, what did you do?" She hoped she wasn't being too curious, but she felt she had a right to know.

"I dropped him off at a hospital, after we agreed on the story he would tell the nurses. I paid off the debts he made while he was addicted to vampire blood, and I made sure Alexander understood that he shouldn't try to punish the man anymore. As the sheriff of the area where he was caught doing V, I am the only one with the authority to punish him. Alexander knows better than to ignore a direct order from me."

"Then why did Michael attack me in the first place?" Norah asked, confused.

Godric's eyebrows drew together.

"Mr. Ridgeway is refusing to stand up to Alexander. He does not want to get himself in even more trouble, since he already knows the consequences of testifying against Alexander. We can not force him to do it either, because that would be the exact opposite of what you've asked me to do: keeping him safe. Unless of course, you've changed your mind?"

Norah shook her head.

"I haven't." She understood Godric's point, even though she really didn't want to. She wanted to see Alexander punished for what he had done. But she knew Godric was right.

"How much money did Michael owe the vampire community?" She asked after a long silence.

"Why do you want to know?" answering a simple question with another question seemed to be a vampire trait, or was it just Godric who did that?

"Because I want to know how much I owe you. I can't pay you back immediately, of course, but once I'm old enough to get a job I-"

He cut her off mid-sentence.

"Why would you think you owe me anything?" He looked and sounded absolutely taken aback.

"You didn't have to pay a dime, Godric. You only did that because _I _asked you to keep Michael safe, and that man never _would_ be safe if he still owed Alexander money. It was because of me that you covered his debt, so I have to repay you."

"You don't have to do anything," Godric frowned at her, "You would never even have met Mr. Ridgeway if it wasn't for me. At the very least I could do what you asked me."

Norah sighed and let the subject go. Godric would never allow her to pay, and to be honest, she was a bit relieved about that. She knew that Michael's debts must've been staggering for him to agree to murder somebody to get out of them. She'd owe Godric money for the rest of her life if she'd have to pay him back.

"Are you sure that Alexander won't go after Michael as well? It seems to me that he's rather vindictive." Norah grimaced. She knew all about Alexander's vindictiveness, and she'd never even met the vampire.

Godric chuckled lightly, but not very cheerfully.

"Alexander doesn't like to bother with ex-bloodheads," she gave him a confused look, and he explained quickly: "people who used to be addicted to vampire blood. He is only after you because your mother hurt his pride, but she is really untouchable. He'll leave Mr. Ridgeway alone, since he doesn't consider him worth the effort. You, on the other hand, are very much worth the effort. He knows that, if he manages to harm you, he'll get to me as well. Without actually touching me, that is."

"How so?"

"Because I'm trying to protect you. If he kills you, that means that I have failed and he will see that as a victory over me."

Godric's response disappointed her. Norah had hoped that Godric had had some other reason for protecting her, other than that he owed her the protection because it was his fault that she needed it._ You're not supposed to feel sad about that, _she chided herself, _you shouldn't even like him. He has done nothing but get you into trouble. That man is danger incarnate, and you should stay as far away from him as possible, at least emotionally._

There was a long pause before Godric started speaking again.

"What I came to ask you tonight: do you have any way of protecting yourself against other humans? Just in case something like yesterday happens again."

"I should hope it doesn't," Norah groaned. She didn't like the prospect of having to knock another person unconscious. Besides, she might not be so lucky next time.

Godric was laughing, even though Norah could not imagine anything less funny. He smiled at her.

"As do I, but what if it does?" He managed to become serious again, and gave her a worried look.

"Well," Norah answered hesitantly, "I still have Michael's gun. In fact, I have it with me right now."

Godric nodded approvingly.

"Good, you took something along to defend yourself with. And I see you're wearing a lot of silver," he shot her an amused look. She felt herself flush a little, "Do you know how to use the gun?"

Norah frowned.

"I guess so," she felt herself turn even more red in embarrassment, "I looked it up on the internet…"

Godric was considerate enough not to laugh, but he did snigger a little.

"Good."

They'd reached the restaurant they'd been heading for. Norah could feel the warmth pouring out of the door, and the delicious smells coming out of the restaurant made her stomach's growling audible.

"I think you should go inside," Godric said, chuckling.

She nodded with a smile and started opening the door, when she suddenly thought of something.

She half-turned back to him.

"Godric, did you glamour Michael?"

"No."

"Good." She hoped he'd be haunted with what he'd been planning for the rest of his life.

Godric was looking at her intently, as if he was waiting for her to elaborate, but she ignored that.

"I suppose you're not interested in eating some Thai food?" she asked instead, with a playful grin.

"Not really, no," he answered, returning her smile. "Goodbye Norah."

Before she could say anything, he was gone.

She rolled her eyes as she walked into the restaurant. Would she ever actually get to see him walk away? He always just vanished into thin air…

Show-off.

* * *

**I know it's not that much, but I just wanted Norah to have a peaceful night after what happened last chapter ;)**

**I love it when I get a review! (hint-hint ;))**

**X  
**


	8. Chapter 8: All I wanna do is dance

**Hey!**

**FINALLY! Another chapter! I know it took me long enough :) It's just that I've been so busy lately! Swimming, dancing (I'm actually preparing for my first recital ever :D), studying, and I've been learning Russian as well (in preparation of an exchange project that's coming up), so yeah, busy, busy, busy!**

**Anyway, I have my wonderful Beta, treewitch703, to thank again, for correcting my work, even though she was ill. I hope you'll be healthy again soon!**

**And, of course, thank you to, my readers and reviewers. You have no idea how much this means to me :)**

**Enjoy!  
**

* * *

Norah was standing back stage, feeling the familiar pre-recital tension work itself up to a fine pitch. It was a good kind of tension, one that made her limbs ache in anticipation, one that made her perform better.

She knew the routine would be as close to perfect as possible: they'd been practicing at least 3 hours a day for the last two weeks, polishing every little detail. The hard work would definitely be worth it; this recital was crucial, one that important people would be watching. Prestigious dance-schools would be scouting out new, promising students, awarding scholarships to the best performers. The expectations were extremely high, but Norah knew that, if nothing went wrong, they'd be able to fulfill those expectations. They'd be amazing.

A few minutes later, she stumbled back into the changing area. She was panting, her lungs aching with each breath, but she really couldn't care less. It had been absolutely perfect. They had gotten the loudest applause she'd ever heard, reassuring her that the spectators felt the same. She just couldn't wipe the huge grin off her face, even though she was sure she looked like a lunatic. She felt like she'd achieved something, like she'd proven to everybody that she was strong, and capable. It was a fantastic feeling.

The girl next to her, Melanie, had doubled over, folding her upper body onto her legs, pressing both of her hands against her heart.

"Dear God," she panted, grinning up at Norah, " I don't think I've ever felt my heart beat this fast. It feels like it's going to jump right out of there any minute now."

Norah just grinned back, nodding her head. She wasn't able to talk just yet, but she knew exactly what Melanie was feeling. She got the idea that _every_ girl who'd just gotten off the stage knew exactly what Melanie was talking about.

Just then, their coach came into the room. He was bouncing up and down as if someone had tied Skippy balls to his shoes, and his maniacal grin told her everything she wanted to know. He was absolutely thrilled.

All the dancers looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to give his critique of the performance. He just beamed right back at them and clapped his hands enthusiastically a couple of times.

"Fantastic!" he exclaimed, with happiness of a toddler who's just found everything he wanted under the Christmas tree. His face fell, and after a moment of silence, he declared: "I swear, if none of you gets a scholarship, I'll eat my own shoes."

Norah let out a husky chuckle, along with all the other girls, as she let her head rest against the wall. They'd done great, and now she could get a drink, sit back and relax to watch the other routines. She planned on taking a long, hot bath when she got home, crawling into bed and not coming out until the sun had set again. It was a nice prospect.

When she had changed out of her performance outfit and into a pair of comfortable sweats and a tank top, she made her way over to the bar and ordered a coke. A quick scan of the room had located her mother, having a nice tête-à-tête at one of the tables with a gentleman Norah had never seen before. The man was tall and skinny, both his hair and his beard looked like they had carefully been groomed into perfection. He was wearing a dark blue suit, which made him look like a business man on his way to some sort of important meeting.

Norah smiled in contentment. Her mother didn't get out much, since she had to work so hard to take care of the two of them. It was nice to see her making new friends, because ever since her father had moved back to England, his home country, Anna hadn't had much of a social life. Being a single mom wasn't easy, but she was doing one hell of a job, and Norah knew she was very lucky, having a mother like hers.

She grabbed her coke off the counter and decided not to interrupt her mom. If anyone deserved to have a good time today, it was Anna, so instead of going over to discuss her performance, she made her way outside. She'd been craving some fresh air after the hot and sweaty back stage area, and she figured that now was the time to go and get it.

She pushed the door open and closed her eyes as she relished the feeling of the cool air on her face. The heat inside had been almost smothering, so the fresh evening breeze was doing wonders.

She opened her eyes again, and let out a frustrated groan as soon as she realized what she was seeing. Even though the alley wasn't lit, their pale skin stood out against the darkness and made it impossible to miss the two men leaning against the wall opposite of her.

_Damn._

It had been almost two weeks now since she'd last seen a vampire, or at least, one she knew about, and she couldn't say she'd disliked the change. Of course, she would have liked to see Godric again, and she was still extremely curious about all things vampire, but didn't people always say that curiosity killed the cat? And she was definitely not willing to be killed.

She walked over to the two vampires reluctantly. Vampires meant trouble, and she didn't want to deal with any of that right now.

"Good evening, Norah." Godric's voice was quiet and gentle as always. She made herself smile up at him, even though she knew it wouldn't look very sincere. It wasn't that she didn't like the teenage vampire, because she did, maybe even a little bit more than she ought to. It was just that, whenever he showed up, trouble was always just around the corner. She didn't think Godric would ever come visit her just to have a little chat.

"Hey Godric, Eric" She nodded at both of them.

There was a long and awkward pause. At least, it was awkward to Norah. The vampires seemed perfectly comfortable.

"Errr…" she began. Why was she always the one that had to break the silence? "Not to sound rude or anything, but why are you here? Has something happened?"

Her stomach clenched nervously as she thought about what could have happened. Was her mother still okay? Who was that man she'd been talking to, anyway? What if _that_ had been Alexander? She had needed only half a second to go from a more or less relaxed mood to one of complete panic. Right up until Godric opened his mouth again.

"No, no, no" he said hastily, "nothing has happened. There is nothing wrong." Norah exhaled. _Thank God_. "We came to see the recital."

Her jaw might have dropped just a little, as she looked at them in pure astonishment.

_Why on earth would they do that?_

Eric was the one who answered her unspoken question.

"You remember that you promised that coach of yours that we'd come see your recital?" He glared at her, and she looked at him in a way that she hoped could be interpreted as apologetic. Eric just ignored her and continued "Godric thought that we should make sure you didn't break that promise, so…" he spread his hands in front of him, as if he was a magician that had just performed an exceptionally spectacular trick. _Tah-dah._

It was obvious that Eric didn't agree with Godric's decision. His voice was literally dripping with sarcasm. Norah rolled her eyes at him and he shot her a guilty grin. Maybe the giant Viking wasn't as bad as he looked after all.

"Your performance was amazing." Godric told her, with a little smile. It was always hard to tell if he really meant what he said, and this time, she was hoping with all her heart that he did.

"Yeah?" she beamed at him, "Thanks, we've been working on it for a long time."

"How long have you been dancing?" It was strange having Godric ask her a personal question, and she couldn't tell if he was actually interested or just being polite. Eric was definitely just bored.

"For as long as I can remember." She had decided that just answering the question would be her best option.

Godric smiled at her "You can tell."

"Thanks."

Eric rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Godric, we should get going now. We have some other matters to attend to right now." Strangely, the way he said that brought to mind the way a child would tell his father that he still had to take him to soccer practice. It reminded her of something she'd wondered about the first time she'd met the two of them.

"Hey, what is your relationship to each other?" The question had left her mouth uncensored, and she bit her lip hard to prevent herself from asking others. It was a bizarre question, and a dumb one at that.

To her relief, they didn't laugh at her. Eric even managed to keep himself from rolling his eyes.

"I was the one who made Eric a vampire, a long time ago."

Before she could even think about asking them how long ago that had been, they were off. Both of them just disappeared into thin air. _Again._

"Definitely a vampire trait." She muttered to herself as she pushed open the door, welcoming the warmth she'd been trying to escape a few minutes ago. Now all she had to do was find her mother, and go home. She was aching for a warm bath, she needed to get rid of the nervous tension in her body. Dealing with vampires was never exactly relaxing, especially if someone like Eric decided to tag along.

* * *

**So, what did you think? Give me your opinion :)**

**For Norah's feelings during the recital, I just described the thing I feel before and after a swimming competition. I'd like to know if any dancers that might read this feel the same, so let me know!**

**Next chapter might take a while as well, since I'm still really busy, but I'm going to try my best to write a little bit quicker ;) Can you guess what's going to happen?**

**X  
**


	9. Chapter 9: An unpleasant surprise

**Hey!**

**A very late happy Valentine to all of you! I hope you got heaps of roses, you guys deserve it :)**

**I'm very sorry, I would've loved to do something actually romantic on Valentine (in the story, of course), but instead you get this xp**

**I hope you like it anyway!**

**)}-^-**

**Enjoy!  
**

* * *

Chapter 9:

"Mom, what's wrong? You're acting weird," Norah shot her mother a sideways glance. Anna had been acting very strange since the recital. She hadn't bothered to comment on Norah's performance, and she had this empty look in her eyes. It was almost as if she was operating on auto-pilot, while her mind was somewhere else entirely.

"Oh, nothing, dear. I'm just very tired, that's all." Anna gave her a weak smile.

"Hmm" Norah didn't buy it for one second. There was something else going on, something she couldn't put her finger on. Anna wasn't acting like herself at all, not even her tired self.

Norah frowned and let her head fall back onto the car seat. She wasn't in a mood to think about things like that. The adrenaline from the performance had worn off, and now she was just plain exhausted. Every limb was aching, and she couldn't even imagine herself walking the short distance between the car and her front door. Luckily, there were both a hot bath and a nice, soft bed waiting for her . She smiled to herself. Those two prospects made walking completely worth the effort.

They finished the rest of the drive in silence, and walked to the front door in the same silence. Why wasn't her mother talking? Usually, Anna would at least tell her she'd done a good job. Why wouldn't she say something since the performance had been so important? Norah had a nagging feeling in her stomach, and it was making her very uneasy. Something was definitely very, very wrong. But what? She was missing something, something big, and she had a feeling it was something dangerous as well. All her instincts were screaming at her to be careful, to turn around, to find another place to stay the night. Her brain didn't agree with her instincts, though. Norah couldn't think of anything that should make her run, so she followed her mother inside, locking the door behind them.

Her mother kept walking, and locked the back door as well, immediately moving on to lock every single window on the first floor.

Norah let out an uneasy chuckle. The alarm in her head was getting louder and louder by the second, but she didn't see anything she should be afraid of. Maybe, if her mind hadn't been so slow and tired from the dancing, and so focused on relaxing hot baths and nice warm beds she would have reacted sooner.

"Mom, what on earth are you doing?" She asked, with half a laugh, "It's not like anybody will be trying to climb through our windows. That would be pretty obvious, on a crowded street like ours."

Her mother ignored her completely, as she finished her bizarre little task. She even locked the tiny window in the bathroom, which was about 7 feet off the ground and barely wide enough to let a bird squirm his way through. What kind of burglar was Anna expecting?

When she was finished, Anna turned back to Norah, who'd dropped herself into one of the comfortable chairs in the living room, and was trying to unfasten her shoes.

Anna walked towards her slowly, with a calculating look on her face, like a predator observing his prey. Norah watched her mother in confusion. It seemed like Anna was trying to anticipate her movements, trying to get closer without running the risk of being surprised by any sudden actions.

Anna stopped less then a yard away from her daughter.

"Mom, what-"

She lunged.

Realization hit Norah an instant before her mother did.

_She'd been glamoured._

The neat-looking man in the business suit, so different from the Dracula-look-alike she'd imagined, was the man that made her afraid to go out at night. Alexander.

Her mother hit her full-force, pressing her down on the couch. She immediately went for her daughter's throat, encircling it with both of her hands.

Norah gagged, and thrashed wildly, trying to find something to kick. She only hit walls and parts of the couch, unable to reach her mother. In a reflex, her hands shot up and grabbed both of her mother's wrists. Gathering all of her force, and strengthened by the adrenaline, she pulled them away, twisting them so that she forced her mother to turn onto her back..

She was still underneath Anna, but Anna had her back to her now, and was unable to do more than kick and try to bite, since Norah was still holding her firmly.

_She had to get outside_

Flipping herself over on her stomach, Norah forced her mom of off the couch. She tried to be as gentle as possible without leaving any room for a fight. No matter how crazy the woman she was fighting looked, it was still her mother, and Norah didn't want to hurt her.

As soon as her mother was off her, Norah scrambled off the couch and started running. She raced into the kitchen, and frantically tried to open a window. _Locked_, of course. Her mother had been preparing.

_She needed a phone._

Her phone was in her bag. In the hallway. Luckily, her mother had only just recovered from her counter-attack, and hadn't found her yet. Norah could hear her storming through the house, but Anna didn't know where she was just yet.

Norah used the opportunity, and she started for the hallway, trying to be fast and silent at the same time, hoping her mother wouldn't hear her. She'd only just reached her goal, the bag, when a loud bang warned her that her mother had slammed open a door to the hallway and could, of course, see her.

Norah started running again. This time, she remembered that going upstairs would be suicide. Instead, she flew into a room they used as a library, and slammed the door shut behind her, immediately locking it as well.

The good thing about this room was that it had only one entrance, so once you blocked that one, nobody could go in or out.

Her mother was banging on the door, screaming at her to let her in. Norah ignored the noise and slid to the floor, using the wall for support. Quickly, she pulled her phone out of her bag and sent Godric a short text.

**Help me! N.**

She hoped he'd understand. She hoped he'd have time to help her. She prayed he'd be there in time.

She dropped the phone on the ground next to her and buried her head in her hands. What a mess. Even her mother was trying to kill her now. Where could she go from here? She didn't realize she'd been crying until she noticed her hands were covered in tears. Maybe it would be better if she just let Alexander have her, just give up.

_No, _she told herself sternly, _He can't win. You are going to get out of this. Alive. Now pull yourself together and think of something._

She'd have to give Godric an invitation, so she'd have to reach a door or a window that opened on the garden or the street. There weren't any of those in the library. She'd have to get past her mother.

Norah wiped her face and looked around the room for something she could use. Sure, there were some statues in there, and a whole lot of books that could easily knock somebody unconscious, if wielded correctly, but she couldn't use those on her mother. She simply refused to use them on her mother.

Groaning in frustration, she decided that the only way to get to a window was trying to charge past her mother, or maybe tackle her. Reluctantly, she walked over to the door, and she slowly unlocked it. When the door *clicked* she jumped backwards and crouched, staring in anticipation. It seemed like she was standing there forever, waiting for the door to open. She tried hard not to think of the consequences if she failed, and she flinched at the possibilities.

Finally, the door slammed open with a deafening bang. Acting purely on instinct, Norah rushed forward and grabbed her mother around the waist. She was lucky that Anna was startled, and her mother went down easily. As soon as Anna hit the floor, Norah scrambled out of the hallway and stormed into the kitchen. Before she could even see if Godric had gotten there, her mother caught up with her and kicked her in the back of her knee, dropping her on the floor. Anna immediately jumped on her daughter, forcing her down, and she clapped her hand over her mouth, effectively silencing her. Straddling her daughter to keep her from struggling she started to rummage around the drawers with her free hand. Horrified, Norah realized what she was doing.

_A knife_.

Anna was looking for a knife. Norah tried to wrestle herself free, but in vain. Her mother's hold on her was too firm, and her fear of hurting the woman who raised her was too big.

"Mom" she started, but the sound was so muffled and unintelligible that she could've said anything. Talking wouldn't have helped anyway, the woman staring down at her was nothing like her mother. There was no remorse, no compassion in her eyes. It was like staring into the eyes of a monster, like staring into the eyes of Alexander.

And 'Alexander' had just gotten a hold of knife. A really sharp one.

At that moment, Norah simply gave up. She stopped struggling, she just waited. Tears were running freely down her face, but she accepted that this was the way it would end. A knife, wielded by her mother, would finish what Michael Ridgeway couldn't. There was no use in fighting anymore. She closed her eyes.

It was over.

There was a splintering crash, followed by glass, shattering into thousands of little pieces. Somebody was screaming her name, yelling at her to snap out of it. Confused, she opened her eyes again. Was it over already? But she hadn't felt a thing…

Suddenly, she noticed her mother, sitting on top of her, still holding the knife, poised to kill. Anna was staring at something outside, with a bewildered expression on her face. Norah struggled a little bit to see what she was looking at. It wasn't easy, since her mother was still holding her tightly, but she managed to catch a glimpse.

There was something standing right outside. Something extremely pale, and apparently extremely worried as well.

Godric.

_Godric!_

Norah came back to her senses within a second. An invitation, she needed to give Godric an invitation, of course. Reflexively, she bit her mother's hand. Her new-found energy made her bite down harder than she thought possible, and within an instant, she could taste her mother's blood in her mouth.

Anna screamed out in pain. Without thought, she snatched back her wounded hand.

Before Anna realized her mistake, Norah had taken advantage of the little slip.

"Godric, come in!" Her voice was hoarse and barely audible because of the earlier strangling. It was enough for Godric, though.

He was inside and by their side within the blink of an eye. Another instant, and he'd pinned Anna down on the floor by her wrists. He was staring down at his victim hungrily.

His fangs had run out completely.

"Godric!" Norah croaked, alarmed. He didn't even seem to hear her, instead, he started to move closer to Anna slowly. Anna was squirming underneath him, trying to free herself, but she didn't stand a chance.

"Will you snap out of it already!" Her voice was shaking with panic, and she grabbed onto his arm and started to shake it, trying to get his attention. She could've been trying to shake a brick wall, but it did seem to work. He immediately retracted his fangs and relaxed into a less threatening position, without actually letting go.

"I am sorry" he mumbled, sounding genuinely embarrassed.

"Don't worry about it." She sighed in relief "Thanks for saving me" Norah propped herself up against the counter, searching for support.

"I was almost too late," he replied quietly, without meeting her eye. There was something strange about his voice, but Norah ignored it. She needed some time to process what had happened. Her mother had just tried to slaughter her with a kitchen knife. She was still trying to do so, from the looks of it. Anna still hadn't given up the struggle against the vampire on top of her, but it was a battle she had no chance of winning.

"Norah?" Godric startedventured carefully after a couple of minutes.

"Hmm?"

"You can't stay here anymore. This could happen again, and I might really be too late next time."

Norah groaned in frustration

"Yeah, I know all of that, but what am I supposed to do? This is my home, you know. I'm too young to live by myself."

"You should come with me," Godric didn't say it like it was an invitation, he made it sound like he was simply stating a fact. In his mind, he probably was, "There is nobody in my house who can be glamoured into attacking you, and no vampire would try to attack you there."

Norah simply nodded. She wasn't feeling like she could argue with Godric, and he actually had a pretty good point. Staying among humans was just going to cause more trouble, the kind of trouble that could cost people their lives. She realized he was completely right.

"You can go upstairs to get some stuff if you want. I'll try to make up a story for your mother."

She got up and slowly walked to her room. It felt like she was dreaming, like nothing around her was real. She was expecting to wake up any minute now, and laugh at her own vivid imagination and her bizarre dreams.

She didn't have the guts to pinch herself to be sure.

She stumbled around her room for a little while, grabbing everything that looked useful to her and stuffing it into a big bag.

When she got back downstairs, Godric had released Anna. He had locked her eyes into his, and was mumbling to her in a soft, persuasive tone.

"Anna Baxley, you sent your daughter, Norah, to England to live with her father for a while. You thought the change would be good for her. You took her to the airport right after her recital…"

Norah looked the other way, unable to watch. She had expected that he'd have to glamour her, but thinking about it was entirely different from seeing it happen. This was the way her mother had been convinced she needed to kill her daughter. This was why Anna had intended to stab her with a kitchen knife, just a couple of minutes ago. She loathed vampires for being able to do that.

She focused an unnecessary amount of attention on the kitchen table, and after a few long minutes, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"We should really leave now," she heard Godric say softly.

"I know."

As they left the house, she wondered if she'd ever be able to come back again. She wondered if she'd ever be able to see her mother again without having to fear for her life.

She wondered how her life had gotten so messed up so quickly.

She didn't even notice that Godric scooped her up in his arms, and she didn't even realize she had a first row seat to the mysterious vampire "disappearances" she'd been wondering about.

* * *

**So, what do you think? I hope you don't hate me now for making Anna look like a psycho ;) (and one with a really sharp kitchen knife, at that ;))**

**Starting on the next chapter as soon as my dad stops telling me I look like a vampire myself (extreme lack of sleep makes me act silly _and _look really pale ;))**

**Oh, and again, a big thank you to treewitch703, because she's fantastic!**

**x  
**


	10. Chapter 10: Where am I?

**Hey!**

**I know, I know, it's been extremely long since I updated, I'm sorry :s**

**But, for those who like the story, I've got good news: I've written three new chapters in one day, and the other two will be up tomorrow and the day after that :)**

**Anyway, enjoy! **

Chapter 10: Where am I?

Norah moaned softly as she woke up, aching all over; it felt like her throat was on fire, it hurt so bad.

_Jesus Christ, talk about sore muscles…_

After a couple of minutes of debating with herself on whether she should get out of bed and do something productive that day or simply spend the day snoozing , she decided that she'd better not waste the day. Slowly, she managed to open her eyes.

Even in the thick darkness of a night with the blinds closed, staring only at the ceiling, the room felt completely alien to her. The ceiling was too high up, too white, and what was even more bizarre: there was one of those fans that look like the propeller of a helicopter attached to the ceiling. She was pretty damn sure she didn't have one of those in her room, as she'd always found them way too scary. Imagine what would happen if it came spinning down while you were asleep in the bed below it…

Completely disoriented, she propped herself up and stared around the room, desperately looking for clues.

It was an extremely big room, at least twice as big as her own bedroom, and it looked like whoever had been in charge of decoration had simply walked into an Ikea store, picked one of the sample-bedrooms and bought every thing in the display.

Three of the walls were painted in some dark color she couldn't quite make out. The fourth wall, the wall behind her, and the ceiling were off-white. As were the sheets and the pillows on the king-size bed she was lying on. On the wall opposite of her, she recognized the smooth, shiny surface of a plasma television. A very big plasma television.

Every little thing in the room, the cabinets, the paintings, even the books stored on the shelves behind her, seemed to be picked to match the rest of the room. Not a single thing looked out of place, everything perfectly fit the picture the decorator had had in mind.

Instead of making the space look good, it gave the room an eerie lack of personality. It made Norah feel like she'd accidentally stumbled into one of those "extreme make-over" TV-shows, and the happy couple whose house had been re-done would come storming through the door any moment, eager to admire their new furniture.

She sat up on the bed properly and crossed her legs under her as she tried to figure out why on earth she wasn't in her own room. What had happened the night before? She smiled to herself as she remembered the dance recital. It had been a good one, and she was sure that they'd made a good impression on their audience. A glance told her that she was still dressed in the comfortable clothes she'd pulled on after their performance. Why hadn't she put on her pajamas after taking a shower? Had she even taken a shower? She frowned deeply as she tried to remember what she'd done when she was finished dancing. She'd gotten into the car with her mom.

_Mom_… Anna had been acting strange. She'd been ignoring her. She'd locked all of the windows when she came home. She'd….

_Oh._

Norah's hands flew up to her throat as she remembered what had happened last night, the fighting, the struggle, the _knife_.

She jumped off of the bed too quickly, but she ignored the woozy feeling in her head and felt her way towards the wall, where, after a bit of fumbling around, she found the light switch. She blinked a couple of times as her eyes adjusted . As soon as she could see properly again, she turned to the full-length mirror which hung next to the door, and carefully examined herself.

She looked absolutely terrible.

Her wrists were badly bruised, and her neck had turned an ugly shade of purple overnight. The contrast with the tiny bits of unbruised skin was so sharp she could've outlined the shape of her mother's hand with a pen if she'd wanted to. She flinched slightly as she tentatively prodded at the bruises on her neck. They hurt like a bitch, and it made her wonder if there would be any permanent damage.

"Hello," she mumbled softly to her own image in the mirror, testing out her voice. She was convinced that her voice couldn't have sounded worse if she'd swallowed an entire live porcupine, but at least she could still talk.

She didn't have the nerve to check underneath her clothes, out of fear of what she might find there, but she felt like she was still in one piece, and she knew that that was a good thing.

_Always look on the bright side of life…_

Sighing, she turned away from her rather gruesome reflection, and let her eyes wander through the room once more. So, she was probably at Godric's house. She really didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, he had of course come to her rescue when she'd needed it the most. On the other, wasn't he sort of the cause of all of her troubles? Both he, and her mother, meddling in the affairs of creatures she shouldn't even know existed. And now that she was thinking about it, how had he not managed to realize Alexander was at the dance recital, the same dance recital he _and _Eric had attended? The longer she thought about everything that had happened to her since she'd learned about the existence of vampires, the angrier she got at him. Who did he think he was, barging into her life like that? Taking her to his house without her even asking?

As she was slowly working her way from a simmer to her boiling point, she heard a light knock on the door of the bedroom. Instead of answering, she just stared at the door angrily, as if doing so would magically make whoever it was just go away.

Of course, it didn't.

After a couple of moments, the door opened, and someone walked into the room.

"Norah?" Godric asked, and he smiled as soon as he spotted her.

He couldn't have planned it any worse, even if he'd wanted to.

At the sight of the vampire she'd been fuming about, Norah just snapped. She completely lost it.

"YOU!" she screamed at him, angrily stabbing her finger at him, "ALL of this is YOUR fault! Couldn't you have simply left me alone? No! Instead, you chose to barge into my life and ruin EVERYTHING, you- "

"Norah, will you please just- " Godric started, but he was immediately cut off by Norah.

"- made me go through all of this shit!" She raged on, completely ignoring him, "If you had just manned up and faced that stupid judge _without_ my mother, everything would still be fine! But nooooo, you decided that it would be a good idea to drag a human woman into all of you _vampire_," she spat out the word, "bullshit!"

"Norah!" Godric cut her off before she could keep on ranting, only slightly lifting his voice, "Listen to me. I really am sorry-"

"Sorry!" She mocked loudly, cutting him off again, "If you were really sorry you would've done something about all of this a long time ago. You would've just killed Alexander already, and you would've dealt with the consequences, instead of burdening a _teenager_ with the task of trying to protect herself against a vindictive vampire!" She pulled the first book she could get her hands on out of the shelf on the wall, "You worthless piece of vampire-shit!" She screamed as she pitched the book at his head with all the strength she had left in her.

Godric ducked long before the book reached him, and it sailed full-speed into a vase that was sitting on a cabinet behind Godric. The vase slammed into the wall behind it and shattered into a thousand different pieces.

"Aargh!" Norah growled in frustration. Seeing the book hit Godric would've been extremely satisfying.

She threw herself onto the bed and buried her head in her hands.

Sitting down like that, calm and without throwing any insults or books at Godric's head, she felt all of her anger disappear like snow before the sun. What was she doing? He was the only person who had bothered to help her, and now she was screaming at him, telling him to "get lost"

"I- I'm sorry Godric,' she whispered, as much as she could whisper with her messed up throat. The burn had become even worse because of all the screaming, "I know you're only trying to help, and I really don't blame you for everything that is happening. It's just that my life has turned so nightmare-ish lately…" She sighed deeply, "I shouldn't be taking all of this out on you."

Godric came to sit next to her on the bed. For a few moments, he just sat there, quietly staring at his hands. Eventually, he started speaking again, softly, and without looking at her.

"You are right to be angry with me, Norah. It _is_ my fault that you have to go through all of this… shit" he seemed to be testing the word while he was saying it. It sounded so awkward it almost made Norah chuckle, "And you are right, I shouldn't have dragged your mother into this, and now that I did, I should just get it over with and incapacitate Alexander." That certainly was a nice way to put it. "It's just that I…" Norah looked at him expectantly, "I just…" he managed, before he trailed of again. It was the first time Norah had ever seen the vampire struggle to find words. It was the first time she'd seen him look at all _uncomfortable_, for that matter.

They sat like that in silence for a couple of minutes, both of them trying to think of a way to finish Godric's sentence. Godric couldn't find the right words to say what was on his mind, and for the first time in what felt like centuries, he didn't know what to say.

Norah simply couldn't imagine any possible way Godric would want to explain his behavior to her.

Godric was the first to break the silence: "There's food for you in the kitchen," he said brusquely as he stood up and started walking towards the door, "you just go downstairs and then it's the first door to the left, impossible to miss. If you want to shower, there's a bathroom over there," he pointed towards the only other door in the room, "I've arranged for some clothes for you, they should be in there."

And just like that, he was back to his normal, calm and composed self, as if nothing had happened.

He exited the room without even bothering to look back.

**So, tell me what you think :)**

**As usual, a big thank you to treewitch703, my fantastic beta, next chapter will be up tomorrow, unless every computer in my home-town suddenly decides to stop working ;)**

**Oh, and one more thing: I don't know if any of my new Russian friends will read this, but if you do, I just wanted to say thank you, you've completely changed my view on that country, and I've had a fantastic time there for the past two weeks, all thanks to you guys. **

**x**


	11. Chapter 11: Talking with Eric

**Hey!**

**As I promised, the next chapter :) Again a big thank you to treewitch703, for proofreading this entire thing and correcting my mistakes, she makes all of this readable :)**

**There will be a chapter up tomorrow, as I already told you guys yesterday.**

**Anyway, Enjoy! **

Chapter 11: talking to Eric

The shower had done wonders for Norah's mood. It was as if the hot water had washed away all of her confusion and helpless anger and replaced it with resignation. Yes, she might just be fighting for her life until the moment she actually died, but she knew that there were people who had it worse. At least she had times when she was safe. When she was at Godric's house, for example. And during the day-time, if she learned how to recognize glamoured people.

She knew that people who were terminally ill had no such moments. The danger came from within them, and no matter how hard they fought, they didn't have any chance of winning. It would kill them.

She actually stood a chance, no matter how small. Her version of an illness had some vulnerable spots, she could defeat it. And if she did, as a prize, she would still die. Just not by the hands of Alexander, but of old age.

It seemed like an amazing prize, totally worth all of the struggle she was going to have to go through.

It might become difficult, but at least she'd lead an interesting life.

When she'd gotten out of the shower, she pulled on the clothes Godric had "arranged" for her to wear. She'd found a pair of skinny black pants, a navy blue t-shirt and an off-white hoodie. They were simple, but pretty, and when she put them on, she was pleased that they were also happened to be extremely comfortable.

It was just a pity that the hoodie didn't cover the bruises on her neck, the gruesome marks sort of made her look like a stylish murder victim.

Clean, dressed and resigned to her grim situation, she felt a lot better. Following Godric's instructions she made her way downstairs to the kitchen.

She'd expected this room to match the other parts of the house she'd seen so far: huge and artfully decorated so that everything would fit the theme perfectly. Even in the hallway, every little trinket matched the rest of the space so perfectly that it became almost eerie.

The kitchen was a surprise, though. First of all, it was just plain _tiny_, Norah was a hundred percent sure that even the kitchen at her house was bigger than that. Hell, even the wardrobe in the bedroom she'd just left had been bigger than that. That, and it had been decorated a lot better. This room looked like it had been thought up by someone with a chronic lack of inspiration. Everything was just so _boring_.

Every surface was done in that bizarre yellowish-white color you often find in old kitchens, not that there were that many surfaces. The room contained a tiny apartment sized stove, a fridge, one cabinet, a sink and a tiny square table with exactly one chair.

What was more: it looked like the kitchen had never been used. No matter how hard she looked, Norah couldn't find any evidence that anybody had ever even tried to cook in there. It was clean, of course, just as freakishly clean as the rest of the house, but there wasn't a single knife, spoon or plate laying around, there were no spices on display, there was not one thing that might indicate that anybody even knew that this house had a kitchen.

Of course, Norah reminded herself, vampires wouldn't need to cook anything, as they had a bit of a… _extraordinary_ diet.

_Bon appetite, Norah…_

Dismissingthat thought, Norah started investigating the cabinet and the fridge, half expecting them to be completely empty. She was lucky, though, the fridge was almost overflowing with food, actual, edible-for-humans food. Upon further investigation, the cabinet turned out to be stocked with plates, pots, pans and cutlery. She smiled to herself, satisfied. She only knew how to cook one dish, but she was sure she'd find all the ingredients in the fridge. She pulled her sleeves up and dove into the fridge. It was omelet-time!

A little while later, she had taken the seat, and was very busy stuffing herself. She hadn't realized how hungry she'd been until she'd started cooking, but the smell of food had almost driven her crazy. It was a relief to finally be able to eat.

About halfway through her meal, Norah was startled when the door to the kitchen opened. In wandered Eric, with the most incredulous look Norah had ever seen on his face.

"I had no idea this house had a kitchen!" he marveled, taking in the closet-like space that was supposed to pass for a kitchen.

"That's what I thought," Norah chuckled, not bothering to stop eating, "Hey Eric."

"Hey Norah," Eric smiled, and after a moment he added, arching an eyebrow, "it's an extremely ugly kitchen, though."

"Tell me about it," she answered, grinning up at him.

Eric really looked at her for the first time since he'd wandered in.

"Wow," he said, as soon as he saw her, "you really do look terrible."

"Gee, thanks, Eric," her voice was dripping with sarcasm, as she quickly pulled her sleeves down over the appalling bruises on her wrists, "I'd like to see how you look after a night like the one I just had…"

"Exactly the same as I do now." Norah stared at him incredulously. _Yeah right…_

"No, really," Eric added nonchalantly after seeing her expression, "we heal very quickly."

"Oh, that must be awesome…" Norah sighed as she gingerly touched the bruises on her neck, "I wish I healed faster."

"You know that that can be arranged, you just have to say the word," Eric grinned at her in an extremely fangy way

"Err, no thanks," Norah said hastily, as soon as she got the hint. She knew Eric was only joking, but the idea still gave her the creeps, "I'll be just fine healing at human speed."

Eric chuckled as he wandered over to the cabinet and hoisted himself onto it.

"Did Alexander do that to you?" He wanted to know. He sounded a bit hopeful, maybe because if it _had_ been Alexander, Godric would've been allowed to punish him. And punishing another vampire sounded an awful lot like it could be Eric's idea of fun.

"No," Norah answered. She thought Eric looked a bit disappointed, "didn't Godric tell you what happened?"

"I tried to ask him just half an hour ago, but he seemed a bit… distraught." Norah felt her cheeks flush. She could take the blame for that.

"Alexander sort of, umm, glamoured my mother into attacking me." Norah mumbled, staring fixedly at her almost-empty plate so she didn't have to look Eric in the eye.

There were a few moments of awkward silence as Eric tried to think of something to say.

"Well, err, you must have one very strong mother, she did a lot of damage;" was what he eventually settled on. Hearing the giant Viking-man-mountain trying to lighten up the situation made Norah want to laugh and scream at the same time, it just seemed so absurd and unreal.

"She practices ju-jitsu in her spare time," Norah explained after swallowing a big chunk of omelet.

"Oh," Eric managed. It occurred to him that this conversation would definitely make it to the top of his weird-conversations list, should he ever decide to compile one.

After a few moments, he let out an uneasy chuckle

"You do seem to have a knack for getting into an entirely new category of trouble, you know that?" he remarked dryly.

"Yeah, I suppose I _am_ way up shit's-creek without a paddle…" Norah mused, more to herself than to Eric.

Eric's booming laughter violently shook her out of her reverie.

"What?" he was barely able to speak, he was laughing so hard.

"It's a figure of speech, you bloody idiot!" Norah said, though she couldn't possibly keep herself from laughing along with him. His laugh was just way too infectious.

"I'm going to have to remember that one," Eric chuckled as he jumped off of the cabinet, "I'll leave you to your food now, I've got some things I have to do before the night is over."

"Oh, what time is it?" Norah didn't even want to think about what "things" Eric might have to do. She couldn't imagine that it would be anything she'd like to join him in.

Eric threw a quick glance at his watch: ".. about midnight."

"Thanks."

Eric stopped in the doorway, and he turned back to face her.

"You know, Norah, I think you are right about being way up shit's-creek," he chuckled , clearly satisfied at being able to use the idiom, "but it seems to me that you are not entirely without a paddle."

With that, he exited the room, leaving behind a completely baffled Norah.

He was right, she realized, she _did_ have a paddle, albeit a rather unconventional one. She had to make her way out of shit's-creek, and to help her do so, she had her very own vampire-paddle.

**I hope you liked it :)**

**Thanks for reading this, and reviews are greatly appreciated (hint hint x))**

**I promise that next chapter will have more Godric ;)**

**x**


	12. Chapter 12: History

**Enjoy!**

Chapter 12:history

Norah wandered aimlessly down the hallway. She had no idea what she was supposed to do now. She wondered if she was even allowed to walk around the house by herself, other vampires might be visiting Godric right at that moment. She wasn't all that eager to find out.

Just as she'd decided to go back to her room, she heard Godric calling her.

"Norah?" She followed his voice into one of the rooms that opened into the hallway, which turned out to be a library. All of the walls, except for the one with the door in it, were completely hidden behind dark, wooden bookshelves, and every single one of those was filled to the max. In the middle of the room, four white leather couches were arranged around a little table, made from the same kind of wood as the bookshelves. Even the table had so many books on it that Norah was afraid it might collapse .

"Hey Godric," Norah smiled as she spotted him, sitting on one of the couches with a huge, ancient-looking book opened up on his lap.

He looked up as soon as he heard her voice.

"Hello Norah," he said, smiling softly, "I hope you had a nice meal?"

"Oh yeah," Norah grinned. Their last conversation seemed all but forgotten, and she could only be happy about that, "I was starving, but your fridge was exactly what I needed. I don't think I've ever seen that much food in one place."

Godric chuckled.

"Glad to hear you liked it. We normally don't use the kitchen, but I had the fridge filled yesterday. I thought you might be hungry when you woke up."

Norah couldn't help but grin "That's very thoughtful of you."

She went to sit on the couch opposite to Godric, and let her eyes wander around the room once more. To her surprise, she noticed that the one wall that wasn't completely obscured by rows after row of books was different from what she'd seen in the rest of this house. Instead of the usual modern vases and abstract paintings that seemed to be picked out to match the decor, this wall and the cabinets arrayed in front of it were crowded with things that looked like ancient artifacts and medieval helmets. Oil paintings and sections of frescos crowded the tops of the cabinets.. Interested, she turned to Godric.

"What are those?"

"Oh," he answered, smiling, "those are some things I collected during my life. The oldest ones are from when I was still human. As a younger vampire, I didn't really have the tendency to collect things, but lately, whenever I see something I remember from my past displayed in a museum, I try to get my hands on it. It's good not to forget the past," his expression turned slightly grim at the end of his explanation. It seemed like his past didn't always please him, but Norah's interest was definitely piqued. Eager to learn something about the mysterious vampire-boy who had so drastically changed her life, she jumped up from the couch and started to investigate all of the different objects. Some of them she didn't even recognize, but after a couple of minutes, she was able to turn back to Godric, who was looking at her curiously.

"So," she declared in a mock-formal tone, "I've come to the conclusion that you were, in your human life, a Celt. Am I right?"

Godric's jaw actually dropped in complete surprise.

"How did you…?" he started, sounding completely bewildered.

"You mean that I'm right?" Norah asked, thrilled that she'd managed to learn something about him, "But that means that you're… about _2000_ years old!" The number completely baffled her. She stared at Godric expectantly.

"I am," he confirmed, "I was actually turned a couple of years before the birth of your Jesus. You still didn't answer my question though. How did you guess?" he demanded.

"Err, your torque sort of betrayed you," she said, gesturing at the ancient golden necklace she'd spotted on the wall behind her, "Wow, you were actually born before Christ…" she murmured to herself. She suddenly felt a strong need to sit down, completely baffled by the sheer amount of time Godric had walked the earth. She'd always been interested in the ancient world, and here she was, sitting across from someone who'd actually lived to see it. It made her own seventeen years seem a little bit ridiculous in comparison.

She spent the next couple of minutes just staring at him, trying to wrap her head around his age, which stood in such sharp contrast with his looks, but eventually, she had to give up. She couldn't possibly imagine how it would be to have lived that long. Probably very lonely, she thought, as all of the people who were once dear to you had long since passed away. Except, of course, for one person, at least in Godric's case.

"What about Eric? How old is he?"

"What do you think?" Godric asked, falling back into his old habit of answering a question with a question. Norah smiled at him, he probably didn't even realize he did that.

The question did make her think, though. How old could Eric be? If Godric was already that old, than Eric could be any age. She thought about Eric for a bit, about how he always made her think about Vikings. Could it be that she had been right about that?

"Umm… a thousand years old?" She ventured insecurely, fiercely hoping she wasn't too far off.

Godric's baffled expression told her that she hadn't been far off the mark at all.

"He is?" she asked incredulously.

Godric nodded.

"How on earth did you know?"

"I, umm, I always thought he looked a bit like a Viking, so, yeah…" she admitted feeling the start of a blush.

"Oh, yes," Godric chuckled, "He was a Viking alright. He had one of those big furry coats and everything."

Norah couldn't help but laugh at the idea of Eric, all dressed up as a Viking, preferably standing on one of those boats that resembled a dragon, yelling commands at his Viking crew, who were, of course, all of them wearing one of those typical Viking helmets with gigantic horns. It really seemed like a situation Eric would be perfectly comfortable in.

"What about you?" she asked, as soon as she'd managed to stop laughing, "You must've been pretty important when you were human, what with your torque and all." She knew that torques had been a symbol of status, and even sometimes divinity.

"I was the leader's son," Godric answered, and his voice had the same kind of far-away tone Norah used when she was talking about her childhood, "So I suppose that I was viewed as an important person."

They stayed silent for a couple of moments, both of them lost in their own train of thought.

Norah was the first to break the silence.

"What were you reading before I came in?" she asked, changing the subject. She needed more time to let what he'd just told her really sink in.

Godric picked up the book he'd laid aside during their conversation, and showed her the cover.

It was an old book, and it was so tattered that she could barely make out the title, but she could just decipher the Greek letters that had been written on the cover a long time ago.

"You're reading the Anabasis!" she exclaimed, as soon as she recognized the title.

"You know it?" Godric asked, sounding more than slightly impressed.

"Yeah, sure," she grinned at him, "we've been reading it in class. Well, we've been translating it, really. With a _lot_ of help from our teacher and a _really_ long vocabulary-list."

Godric laughed, "It _would_ be like you to have read this book."

"I've only read a couple of fragments," she sighed, "and I don't think I'll have a chance to read the rest, seeing as how Alexander might glamour my teacher or one of my fellow students into going ballistic during class. I don't want to be the cause of that."

"I am so sorry…" Godric murmured, avoiding her eyes.

"As I've told you earlier, Godric: I really don't blame you for what's happening to me. As far as I'm concerned, this is all Alexander's fault."

He gave her a sad smile, but didn't answer her. Instead, he again picked up the book he'd tossed aside.

"Would you like to hear the rest of the story?" he asked, gesturing at the book.

Norah smiled "Sure."

"Come sit here," he told her, patting the space on the couch next to him.

She settled down next to him as he opened the book and flipped to the page where the story started. Carefully, so she didn't startle him, Norah laid her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes, waiting for him to start.

Godric shifted a bit, so she could comfortably lean into him, and started reading:

"Darius and Parysatis had two sons; the oldest one was named Artaxerxes, the younger one Cyrus. When Darius became ill…"

**Tell me what you think :)**

**By the way: a torque is, as said in the text, a Celtic symbol of status. It's a sort of necklace, and the amount of torques a person/god wore indicated his status and importance. **

**The anabasis is actually a Greek book, written by Xenophon. It's about a Persian prince, Cyrus, who recrutes Greek men for an expedition into the Persian empire. What the Greek men don't know is that they are actually going to war with Cyruses older brother, Artaxerxes, who is the king of the Persian empire. The write of the book, Xenophon, participated in the expedition and later wrote a book about it, the Anabasis.**

**x**


	13. Chapter 13: New information

**Hey!**

**Sorry it took me so long to write a new chapter I was way too busy (you know, fighting dragons, being a ninja, the usual stuff), AND I had a gigantic problem with the timing in the story, but now that that's all worked out, I'm back on track :)**

**I hope you like the chapter, because I enjoyed the hell out of myself writing it :)**

**Thank you, yet again, to my beta treewitch703, who not only helped me correct the language-mistakes in this chapter, but also pointed out some mistakes I made against the True Blood-world (shame on me!) and thus saved me from being scolded in the review section. If there are any mistakes left, feel free to correct me (without the scolding, please ;)), and I am very sorry about them, it's been ages since I've watched the show.**

**Anyway, Enjoy!**

Chapter 13: New information

Norah had been awake for at least fifteen minutes, but she didn't feel like moving yet. She was still lying on the couch with Godric, just as she had been when she'd fallen asleep. Instead of resting her head on his shoulder, she was now sort of using his lap as a pillow.

She would've been lying if she'd said that she wasn't a lot more comfortable that way.

She'd turned on her back, carefully, so she didn't wake Godric up, and looked up at the boy, or rather, the vampire, that had changed her life so drastically.

He didn't look particularly calm or peaceful or anything else you might say about a sleeping person. He didn't even look like he was sleeping, for that matter.

To her, he just looked very _dead_.

There wasn't a single thing about him that made him look alive. No twitching fingers, no drowsy, unintelligible mumbling, and as far as she could tell there weren't any signs at all that he was even _breathing_.

Had he been human, Norah would have had a mini-heart-attack by then.

_But_, she reminded herself, _he is definitely __**not**__ human, that much is certain. And didn't he himself tell me that vampires can only be killed by the sun or a wooden stake through the heart? This room doesn't have any windows, and as far as I can tell, there aren't any pointy wooden objects around here either._

_Which means that vampires simply look dead when they're asleep._

She sighed to herself. A little warning about that would have been nice. What if she'd gone completely ballistic after finding him so, for the lack of a better word, _corpse-y_?

"Well," she started, answering her own question out loud, "I would probably wake Godric up with my screaming, it'd be embarrassing for a little while, and that would be it. There would be no drama, no life-altering experiences or huge disasters. I need to stop getting upset so quickly, and…" she paused for a second before adding, "… and I really need to learn to stop talking to myself. I sound like I should be in a mental institution."

She chuckled darkly as she realized that that was exactly where she would be going, should she decide to tell anybody else about the circumstances surrounding the past few days. She'd be committed without a second thought.

Sometimes, she had to admit, she herself thought she might have gone insane. The reasons varied: every now and then, she figured she was probably just making all of this up. She'd be convinced that she'd probably been living inside her own head for days on end now. Maybe her frantic parents had already taken her to a mental institution, maybe moving to Godric's house had been her mind's way of explaining the sudden change in scenery.

Whenever she thought about this theory, she'd quickly dismiss it, because it was just too improbable to be true. She'd never had any mental health problems before, so it seemed odd that that would change so drastically. Especially since she couldn't think of any causes for a mental illness. Well at least, if you assumed that all the vampire-stuff was going on inside of her own head.

No, the thing she worried about the most when she was thinking of her possible insanity, was the calm, detached way she was handling all of this (well, save for that one time when she'd started screaming and wound up throwing a book at Godric's head). It seemed odd, even to her, that she wasn't completely freaking out, that she was still able to sleep when she wanted to sleep and eat when she needed to eat. Why hadn't she developed PTSD after her mother had attacked her with a knife? Was she just paranoid since death seemed to close in on her so quickly?

She sighed and tried to turn her thoughts to other topics. She'd always felt that she might getting too far into self-analysis, but now, since she'd moved out of her house, she was definitely over-doing it. And she didn't even manage to answer any of her own questions. It was just futile, and a little bit depressing.

She went back to studying the face of the ancient teenager above her. For a little while, she wondered when she'd started to like the boy instead of seeing him as bad news. Was it just his newly achieved knight-in-shining-armor status? That didn't seem to cut it. It was the way he, the two thousand year old vampire, was worrying about a seventeen year old human. The way he was trying to make her feel at home in the huge house. The way he'd bothered to show up at the dance recital, even though his "child" was definitely not at all that eager to be there.

She knew that he was only doing it out of guilt. It was just his way of apologizing for the danger he'd put her in. It didn't really mean anything.

_Be happy he's at least trying to apologize,_ she told herself, i_t seems like a very un-vampire thing to do. I couldn't imagine Eric apologizing to anyone._

The thought made her giggle. No, she couldn't imagine proud Eric apologizing to anybody, for anything, at least not genuinely.

She'd been planning on laying there a while longer, maybe even taking a nap, but her stomach started to growl in protest. It was definitely time to eat.

She cat stretched, flexing her ankles and wrists, and got up, hoping she'd be able to find her way back to the kitchen.

It was then that something caught her eye.

There was a rather formal-looking letter on the table, one that she was quite sure hadn't been there when she'd fallen asleep. She wasn't planning on reading the letter, her mother had always taught her that you should never read another person's mail, unless that person gave you permission. Just out of sheer curiosity, though, she glanced at the signature at the bottom of the page.

It read:

_Yours truly,_

_The Magister, Magnus._

"The Magister?" she mused to herself, "Wasn't it the Magister who cleared Godric's name when Alexander accused him of breaking the law? Then he must be the one who ordered that nobody was allowed to hurt my mom. Why would he….?"

She trailed off. Why _would_ the Magister write to Godric? It seemed very unlikely that he would have changed his mind about the verdict given at the trial that went against Alexander. It seemed even more unlikely that he'd inform Godric of such a thing by letter.

Then she thought of something.

_Oh god, no._

What if the Magister had decided that Anna wasn't worth protecting? What if he'd been thinking about it, and came to the conclusion that he didn't want to be responsible for a "mere human"? Her mother didn't have Godric's protection, like she did. Alexander would kill her within seconds.

She needed to read that letter.

She glanced over at Godric. He was just as immobile as he had been; he definitely wasn't going to wake up any time soon.

She hoped he wouldn't mind her reading his mail.

She prayed that the letter was about something completely different.

Snatching up the letter, she skimmed it as fast as she could. She had to stop herself mid-sentence more than once, too nervous and worried to understand a word it said.

The letter wasn't about Anna. Not at all.

It was a fantastic letter, amazing, mind-blowing, all of those things at once. Norah was sure that its contents could change the world forever.

But it was also absolutely terrifying.

The beginning was normal, the usual salutation, inquiries about how things were going in Dallas , a brief mention of how happy he was that Godric wasn't guilty of "breaking the law of the claim", nothing extraordinary. The Magister went on to explain that he didn't send this letter to Godric because of his title as a sheriff, but because of his general status and importance in the vampire world.

Then it became interesting.

Somewhere in Japan, scientists had apparently been working on a synthetic version of whole blood for years. They wanted to be able to create an artificial blood that could be used in hospitals and ambulances, when there wasn't enough real, donated, human blood for the people who needed it.

Since blood was involved, inevitably, vampires became involved as well, as they sent a, as the Magister put it, "particularly smart, trustworthy and loyal member of their society".

His job was to work along on the project and "test" whatever the Japanese scientists came up with.

Turns out that, after much trial and error, they got it right.

Though the artificial blood was described by everybody who tasted it as "very, _very_ disgusting", it did indeed satisfy the needs of a vampire. The blood had been tested at length and thoroughly and the conclusion was loud and clear:

_Our existence drinking only this type of artificial blood is possible._

There was simply no doubt about it.

Then the Magister had started to explain what this would change. When she read it, Norah, who was already shaken up, damn near fainted.

If they managed to get the entire vampire community to live, or at least pretend to live, on artificial blood alone, they might be able to reveal themselves to the world.

The vampires. Revealing themselves. To _everybody_.

At that point, Norah had to sit down. She forced herself not to dwell on that part and read the rest of the letter.

The Magister went on to sum up the advantages such a drastic change would have for the vampire community. No more killing or glamouring to get the money you needed to survive, you would be able to earn it, like every other being. No more living in cemeteries or glamouring real-estate agents senseless because you don't have the identification needed to buy a house, you would have the papers, because you would be a legal citizen. No more trying to convince your neighbors you have an "allergy to sunlight" when you're trying to live a normal life, you would just be able to tell them that you're a vampire, and thus, can't come out during the day.

No more hiding.

You see, the Magister wrote, it's a win-win situation. The vampires get a lot of advantages, the humans are no longer kept in the dark about our existence.

Things had already been set into motion, he explained, decisions have been made. Important vampires are being informed. Contracts for the mass production of the artificial blood, which was to be called _True Blood_, are being signed with both vampires and humans who have the resources for such an operation. Important jobs have been assigned to qualified vampires who've proven their loyalty . The most important job had been given to a woman Norah had never heard of before, named Nan Flanagan. She'd be the spokeswoman for the vampire community, the public face that would show the vampires in the best light possible. A date for what was going to be known as "The Great Revelation" had been decided on: exactly six months from now.

The entire process was irreversible.

There was absolutely no way back.

Vampires would finally, after thousands of years, come out of their coffins, and into the world.

Her hands shaking slightly, Norah put the letter back on the table. She felt a bit sick. She slumped back onto the couch, thinking of Alexander.

Was the world ready to be exposed to someone like him?

**So, tell me what you think :)**

**I'm pretty excited that I get to write about the Great Revelation, I think it's just awesome ;)**

**x  
**


	14. Chapter 14: What do you think?

**Hey :)**

**I know, I know, I really am terrible at updating on time :( I'll try to get the next chapter up a bit quicker, but I really can't promise anything (I have an insane amount of work to do for school x))**

**Anyway, as always, I'd like to thank my super-awesome beta treewitch703, without her, this wouldn't even be readable. Yeah, she's just amazing that way ;) **

**Enjoy! **

She had no idea how long she'd been sitting on that couch, just staring ahead, when she heard someone settle beside her.

"Norah?"

"Yeah," she answered distractedly, "Yeah, I'm up."

Godric was silent for a moment.

"Norah, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I – uh…" She felt a deep-red blush creeping up her neck, "I read your letter." She admitted sheepishly, gesturing towards the little piece of paper on the table. She figured there was no use in trying to deny that she'd read it, he'd find out eventually.

"Oh."

When he didn't say anything else, she started to get a bit worried. Would he be angry?

"I saw it lying on the table," she started explaining hastily, "and I really wasn't planning on reading it, I swear, but then I saw that the Magister had sent it and I… Well, I thought it might have something to do with, you know… My mom."

She heard him exhale sharply.

"You thought he might have changed his mind about protecting your mother." He murmured quietly.

"Well… yeah," she admitted a bit awkwardly, "So I started reading, and, well… even when I realized the letter had absolutely nothing to do with my mom it was too... interesting to stop reading."

There was a long silence as Godric considered her words and she tried to predict his reaction.

"Well," Godric started after a while, "What do you think?"

Norah turned to stare at him. That was definitely _not_ the type of reaction she'd been expecting.

"What?" She managed.

"I'm asking you your opinion on the Great Revelation," Godric stated calmly, "Do you think it's a good idea?"

"Um.." She started, "honestly, I don't know, Godric. I mean, I think my perception of vampires might be a bit too biased to give you a decent answer."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know, when I think of vampires like you then I feel like a Revelation would be a great idea. The world could use a couple more people like you." She saw him giving her a skeptical look, but she chose to ignore it and went on: "But then I think of vampires like Alexander, and then I feel like it wouldn't be fair to force the entire world to face threats like that."

"The entire world is already forced to face things like that on a daily basis, they just don't know about it yet."

"Yeah, but facing a threat is a lot more difficult when you actually know about it. I can tell because- you know," she shot him half a grin, "personal experience and all that."

Godric nodded, "I see your point."

"But you know, it's not just the vampires that give me these mixed feelings about the Revelation. It's the humans too. I think that a lot of people will be accepting and open about this, and if everyone was like that, a Revelation would be a great idea. But you'll always have Rednecks who have trouble accepting that some people are gay, and that those people are actually human too, not the devil incarnate or something. Think about how much trouble they'll have accepting that people who also happen to be un-dead aren't made out of pure evil. There's a good chance that those people will make the entire coming-out just go to hell."

Godric nodded again. He looked genuinely interested, though Norah thought that that wasn't the case. _What could a seventeen year old human girl possibly have to say to a two thousand year old vampire that he couldn't have thought of by himself?_ Just for the time being though, she let herself pretend that he wasn't just being polite, and that he might actually care for her opinion.

"You're probably right," he mused, "It will not be easy. But then again, things like this never are. There's bound to be some struggle. I do believe the Magister knows that, too." He paused a little, before adding, "If only everyone would react in the same way you and Anna did." He was smiling fondly at the memory.

Norah grinned, "I do believe that at first I stuttered a little, and then I bombarded you with so many questions that you must've felt like you were back in the middle of the Spanish Inquisition."

Godric chuckled, "You had a good reason to be curious."

"Well ya," she laughed, "Finding out vampires are real was kind of a big shock. But imagine every person in the world inundating you with questions about garlic, mirrors and Count Dracula."

Godric joined her laughter, "Okay, I can see how that might become a bit annoying after a while."

"Yeah, right about when Mr. six-thousand-one asks you if you're going to turn into a haze at some point during the night, so you can sneak into the bedroom of some young lady without being noticed."

Godric started laughing again, and Norah was content just sitting there, listening to the sound. It was nice to hear him laugh again, even when he had so much on his mind.

When his laughter had calmed down, he added:

"I think it will be for the best, though. The Great Revelation, I mean, not the sneaking through some young lady's bedroom window."

"Yeah? How so?" Norah questioned.

"Well, if you think about it, mainstreaming and selling True Blood is the only way vampires will stop murdering so many humans for their blood. If it gets a few vampires to start living mainly off of True Blood, the Revelation will have been worth the trouble. It's really the safest option for human kind."

"But you don't think vampires will ever start living completely on True Blood." It wasn't really a question, but more like a statement.

"No. I don't think that that would be possible." He paused a little, "True Blood will never satisfy _every_… need a vampire might have."

"You mean that it won't satisfy a vampire's need to rip apart a humans neck with his fangs."

"No!" Godric started indignantly, "well… well, actually yes, you are right, but I wouldn't have put it that way."

"I know," she said, smiling a little, "But I suppose I understand, though. It would be the same as if I would suddenly be forced to give up on all solid food and to start living off of meat and vegetables that went through a blender first."

"I don't know if that's a good comparison. I can't remember."

The silence that fell was interrupted when Norah's stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten yet by growling loudly.

Godric chuckled lightly, "I think it's about time we get you some good, un-pureed food."

"I think you might be right," she smiled.

They headed for the kitchen, where Godric instructed her to sit down while he fixed something for her.

Hesitantly, she did as she was told, and she watched him suspiciously as he started rummaging through the kitchen cabinet.

"How do you even know how to cook?" She managed finally, watching the ancient teenager cracking a couple of eggs into a frying pan.

He answered with a slight chuckle: "When you're two thousand years old, you pick up a thing or two…" and after shooting her a lopsided grin over his shoulder, he added: "And this particular dish, I picked up watching the food channel last night."

She couldn't help but laugh: "Uh-huh, I see, knowledge passed on throughout the ages, right?"

He chuckled along with her, and even though she'd only just learned something that would change the entire world forever, she couldn't help but think that this, laughing with Godric as she watched him prepare her food, was the most normal she'd felt since she'd met her first vampire.


	15. Chapter 15: Breakfast

******Hey :)**

**Yes, I know, I'm _terribly_ late with this one, but just so you know: I actually have a decent reason this time (awesome, isn't it? ;)). The thing is, right after I wrote this chapter (and tried to send it to my beta, but accidentally forgot to add the chapter to te mail -_-), our computer crashed... So practically all of my writing was lost :( And then there were exams (really, _really_ difficult ones), so I honestly couldn't find any time to try and save this chapter :(**

**Anyway, it's here now, so you might as well enjoy it ;)**

Godric had apparently decided to make her breakfast, despite the fact that it was already almost ten o'clock in the evening. After rummaging around in the kitchen for a couple of minutes, he'd turned around with a look on his face that, though uncharacteristic for Godric, could only be described as rather smug. He'd handed her a plate that was almost overflowing with scrambled eggs, toast, bacon,… He'd even gone through the trouble of making her a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

"Bonne appetite" he said, smiling as Norah eagerly attacked her breakfast.

"Thanks," Norah managed to mumble in between to bites, "It's delicious."

"You're welcome," Godric chuckled as he settled down into the chair across from her.

A long silence fell over them, as Norah shoveled enormous amounts of food into her mouth with each bite, and Godric stared at her fixedly, as if seeing a human eat was the most fascinating thing he'd ever witnessed.

After a few minutes, Norah started to feel uncomfortable under Godric's gaze, and she started shifting awkwardly in her chair as she tried to think of something to say.

"Mmph," she started, as she attempted to wash down a particularly large chunk of toast with a mouthful of orange juice, "So how come this house has a kitchen? I thought vampires didn't eat normal human-food, right?"

"Right," Godric said, as he finally stop staring at Norah and let his eyes wander around the tiny kitchen, " This kitchen is only here to satisfy the needs of the occasional human… errr… _guest_." He finished awkwardly.

Norah almost choked on her eggs as the idea of Godric and Eric entertaining guests for dinner made her burst out in nervous and slightly-hysteric laughter.

"_Guest_?" she asked mockingly, trying her best to conceal her discomfort "And do these _guests _of yours ever make it out of the house unharmed?"

Godric looked rather insulted, but Norah was too busy trying to stifle her nervous chuckles to really notice she'd crossed a line with him.

"Of course they do," Godric's voice was calm, yet somehow he managed to sound indignant, "Should I remind you that you, yourself are a guest here? And as long as you've been in this house, you've been unharmed, haven't you?"

"Sure," Norah said. She could still feel her smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, even though there was nothing funny about Godric's icy tone, "But am I really? A guest, that is. I mean, I kind of got the idea that you saw me more as some sort of… social project? Does that make any sense? You seem to have brought me here because in your mind, you owed that to me after what had happened to me. Not because you actually like having me here. In that way, I'm less of a guest, and more of an obligation, right?"

During her speech, Norah had redirected her attention towards her plate, and even though all of her appetite was completely gone, she was now focusing intently on rearranging the food on her plate. Anything to avoid Godric's eyes.

"Is… Is that really what you think?" Godric's voice was soft and low, almost a whisper. She felt her cheeks heat up as she answered him, poking her fork at a tiny chunk of toast as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

"Well, I'm right, aren't I? I mean, why else would you tolerate me in your house? Why on earth would you _enjoy_ the presence of a seventeen year old human girl?" she was talking louder and louder as she felt the anger at Godric build up in her chest, "You're a two thousand year old vampire, for Christ's sake! I must be the most boring person you've met in your entire existence, I mean, I haven't even been outside of this country yet! And you, you must've seen so many different places, so many famous people in your existence, how could talking to me be anything other than boring? How could you even like a person like me?" She was yelling at him now, yelling at his stupid acting, his pretending, his idiotic feigned interest in what she had to say, his entire fake attitude towards her. Completely overwhelmed by her anger, she slammed her fork down on the table and stared Godric right in the eye. "You don't actually care about me! You only care about quieting you conscience, 'cause for some reason, you got it into your head that you _owe_ me something!"

She shoved back her chair angrily, making it slam into the wall behind her as she stood up.

"Norah…" Godric started as she stormed out, his voice so full of hurt that it made her stop halfway through the door.

"Forget it Godric," she spat at him, " I don't even want to hear you pretending like you care anymore, it only makes it hurt more!"

The tears in her eyes turned the house into a blurry streak as she sprinted up to her room, leaving Godric sitting alone at the kitchen table, feeling more lost and confused than he ever remembered feeling.

**Aargh, I'm sorry for making Norah seem so emotionally unstable, I really am, but I just can't seem to help myself ;)**

**I just don't think anybody could act normal after what I just put Norah through :p**

**I hope you liked it, as usual, and if you did, you have (yet again) my amazing beta treewitch703 to thank for that, because her grammar-correcting powers are what makes this story readable ;)**

**As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, I hope I haven't made you guys hate me yet with all the yelling Godric's been having to put up with, but you know... Let me know ;)**

**The next chapter is actually already finished, and will be up as soon as I manage to get myself out of bed tomorrow morning (it's 2 A.M. now, so I don't expect that to be particularly early...)**

**x**


	16. Chapter 16: In the bathroom

**Hey you guys :)**

**I only realized just how short the last chapter was when I had already uploaded it, but this one's a bit longer so... Yaay?**

**I promise Norah's nicer in this one ;)**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"Stupid pretentious prick…" Norah muttered as she stalked into her bedroom, angrily wiping at the tears that just wouldn't stop running down her cheeks.

She told herself she had nothing to cry over, that she was _seventeen_, for god's sake, and seventeen-year-olds aren't supposed to start bawling over every petty little drama that happens in their lives. Especially when said seventeen-year-old had even more or less managed to keep it together after her own mother had tried to butcher her with a kitchen knife.

Unrequited what-evers were too ridiculously insignificant to cry over.

And yet, she couldn't stop herself. She couldn't stop the tears from spilling over her cheeks, she couldn't stop herself from sobbing, even though she had no idea what she was really crying over. Godric's indifference? Her mother's attack? This whole bloody situation?

She didn't know, nor did she really care: all of those reasons were equally ridiculous to cry over. After all, nothing could be done about any of those things. Godric wouldn't magically start caring, her mother's attack couldn't be reversed and Alexander would never be so nice as to simply vanish into thin air.

And so she simply wiped up her tears and made her way into the bathroom so she could wash.

She splashed some cold water onto her face in an attempt to repair her appearance, but it didn't seem to help that much. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, her skin looked a bit blotchy and the bruises on her neck had turned a hideous shade that somehow managed to look like a combination of both purple and green. She poked gingerly at the bruises, wondering how much longer it would take for them to heal up completely. Judging by the sharp flashes of pain her careful fingers caused, they would probably take their time.

Sighing in resignation, she turned away from the mirror and carefully lowered herself onto the edge of the bathtub, forcing herself to think about what had just happened.

She had been yelling at Godric. Again.

"Why on _earth_ do I keep on doing that?" She muttered to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, "Am I really that much of an idiot?"

_Never mind that question,_ she thought immediately,_ we already know the answer to that one. Of course you are a bloody idiot, screaming at the one person in the world who doesn't seem to be trying to get you killed, throwing books at his head… You must be just about the biggest retard the world has ever known…_

She groaned at her own stupidity, covering her face with both of her hands.

_Dumb, dumb, dumb…_

There was a soft knock on her bedroom door, and a voice calling out to her

"Norah, are you in here?"

It was Godric, of course it was. The one person she didn't want to face right now; out of embarrassment for what she'd just done and out of fear of what she might do, but also the one person she needed to talk to more than anybody else.

She sighed and nervously ran a hand through her hair as she called back to him

"In the bathroom, Godric."

There was a short pause, during which she imagined him walking across the room towards the bathroom door. Then there was his voice again, a lot closer now than it had been the first time:

"Are… Are you decent?" He asked awkwardly.

Norah threw a quick look in the mirror. Her eyes landed on her god-awful bruises, the red blotches on her cheeks and her puffy bloodshot eyes. She looked anything but presentable.

"More or less." She muttered, she knew he'd seen her look worse.

Godric came shuffling through the door, looking only slightly uncomfortable with the situation.

"Hey" she mumbled, attempting a smile. Judging by the crease between his eyebrows, her attempt failed miserably.

"Are you okay?" He asked, sounding a bit uncertain. Norah thought she might be imagining things, but he seemed to be eying her a bit suspiciously, as if he thought she might blow up again at any given moment.

She could hardly blame him.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, trying to make her smile seem a bit more genuine and reassuring this time, "I'm fine. Sorry about that…"

"Norah…" she heard him say, his tone making it clear he didn't believe her to be fine. At all.

"No, seriously Godric," Norah tried to convince him, "I'm okay. I just sort of…" She coughed awkwardly "… Lost it back there, I guess. I'm fine now. I'm just sorry for yelling at you… Again…"

She felt him quietly sit down beside her before he started to speak again:

"Really, Norah, you have nothing to apologize for," he started, carefully avoiding her bruises as he took her hand in his, "after all that has happened lately…" To her surprise, Godric let out a slight chuckle, "I should probably be the one apologizing. Honestly, I would be yelling at myself as well…"

"Oh right," Norah said, not able to stop herself from mimicking Godric's chuckle, "and I suppose you'd also be throwing books at your own head?"

"I think I'd be doing much, much more than that…" He muttered darkly.

"Oh… Well, I guess I'll stop feeling bad about the whole book-thing then." Norah said, attempting a joke.

It worked. Godric grinned at her:

"Well you should, that's what I was aiming for."

She smiled back at him, and they fell into a comfortable silence.

They just sat there, on the edge of the bathtub, side by side, the ancient vampire boy and the human girl whose world had been turned upside-down. Godric holding on to Norah's hand, tracing comforting shapes on the back of it, and Norah allowing herself to just be content and happy for a little while, without worrying about the future.

After what felt like forever, Godric squeezed Norah's hand one last time before letting go and getting up.

"It's almost sunrise, I should probably head to my room." He said, almost sounding like he was apologizing, "I would like to ask you one more thing though. Tomorrow-night, there will be some other vampires around the house, as they need to be informed about the Great Revelation. I think it's safest for you if you stay in your room that night, some of the attending vampires aren't exactly… _friendly_ to humans."

Norah nodded. She knew exactly just how unfriendly vampires could be.

"I will inform them that this room is off-limits, but should any of them come in here despite that order, you should probably… Well, only if you want to of course… If you're okay with that, I'm not forcing you into anything… I mean, it is the safest, but-"

"Godric," Norah finally interrupted him. She'd never expected to hear the vampire _rambling incoherently_, yet here he was, doing exactly that, "Just say what you want to say, I promise I won't be offended."

He smiled at her, though he didn't look particularly reassured.

"I was wondering if you would be okay with telling any possible intruders that you are… mine," Norah felt her stomach clench involuntarily, in a very good and very pleasant way. _Stop it_, she chided herself immediately, _he's just talking anti-vampire safety-measures again, don't get your hopes up. _"I wouldn't actually claim you, but if you just told the other vampires that I did, that would be enough to make them keep their distance…"

"Sure," Norah answered, smiling reassuringly at him, "Thanks for the tip. And don't worry, I'm not actually offended or anything."

"Good," Godric said, smiling slightly with relief, "Good day then, Norah."

He started walking out the bathroom.

"Good day Godric, and thanks for breakfast."

* * *

**See, I told you Norah was going to be nicer in this one :p**

**Anyway, I'll (hopefully) start writing the next chapter today: I have tooons of time (voor de Nederlandstalingen: deliberaties, woehoeww! ;)), so I might as well be a bit productive today :p**

**I would love to hear what you think on this one: fluff and dialogues aren't exactly my forté, and this chapter has a bit of both, so tell me how you think I did :p**

**x**


	17. Chapter 17: Boredom!

**Hey you guys :) I know, it's been a terribly long time since I updated, you must all hate me now :( It's just been a bit of a rough time for me, since I quit competitive swimming (which was something I'd been doing since I was 8, so literally half of my life). I had some trouble re-adjusting to life as a non-swimmer, but I'm good now :)**

**And me not swimming anymore, that also means me having more time to write on this story (because seriously, I'm actually ashamed that it's taking me so long :p) , so yay! Also, I'd like to thank every single one of you who has managed to bear with me so far, erratic writing schedule aside. It makes me smile that I still get reviews, even though I treat you guys horribly ;) Specia thanks to DarkAngel620, Kurox, sj61 and downbelowgirl (and of course, many many more), who I just realized are the most awesome people ever, I love your reviews! :D**

**Any way, now that I'm done with the guilt-tripping, ON WITH THE STORY! :D**

* * *

****Chapter 17: Boredom in a house full of vampires?

Norah was bored out of her mind.

She'd spent the entire day wandering about the house, avoiding rooms that might contain any sleeping vampires. She had tried to sleep for a bit, but realized soon enough that her talk with Godric had left her way too jittery to relax. Which was why, by the time she felt she ought to go back to her room, she'd inspected every single book in the library (none of which were in English), flipped through all eight-hundred and six channels on the TV (none of which were showing anything interesting) and made herself at least six meals in the tiny kitchen (because, let's face it, hunger and boredom are practically the same thing). At about five in the evening, when she figured the vampires would be about to wake up, she'd retreated to her room. No matter how bored she was, she wasn't crazy enough yet to ignore Godric's advice for a bit of entertainment.

She'd spent her night watching "Trinny and Susanna" and bits and pieces of Twilight (all the while mocking the idea of vegetarian vampires that s_parkle_. Oh, the surprise _real_ vampires had in store for humanity…), trying on every single piece of clothing in the rather extensive wardrobe and taking the longest bath of her life. Eventually, she'd sprawled out on the giant bed and mindlessly stared at the ceiling fan, wondering how it was even _possible_ to be so bored in a house that was probably overflowing with vampires by now.

She let out a tortured sigh. Did time always pass this s_lowly_ when you weren't running around with vampires?

Suddenly, as if some kind of higher power had decided that it was time to end her boredom, Norah's phone rang. She sprang off her bed excitedly and hurried to fish her phone out of her bag. After a few moments of frantic searching, she felt her hand close around the familiar shape and quickly pulled it out. All of her earlier excitement died down as soon as she looked at the display.

_Mom_

She groaned in frustration and debated for a quick second on whether to answer it. Eventually, she decided that she'd have to face her mom at some point, and that it might as well be now.

She picked up.

"Hey mom!" She greeted, trying to sound cheerful.

"Hi honey, is something wrong?" Anna asked worriedly as Norah silently cursed her terrible acting skills.

"Uh, no mom," Norah lied quickly, "just a bit tired, that's all."

"I'm sorry, baby," Hearing her mother using pet-names after what had happened was strange, to say the least, "I didn't wake you up, did I? I really tried to calculate it so that you would be awake when I called you, but I just couldn't wait any longer."

"…Calculate?" Norah asked, shooting a confused glance at the clock. It was almost one A.M. now, what exactly had her mother been calculating?

"Well yes…" Anna started to explain, "Wait, it is _earlier_ in America than it is in England, right? Or did I mess up again? Oh honey, I'm so sorry, I always get those stupid time zones mixed up…"

"No, no, no," Norah cut off her mother's apologetic rambling, "England, right… Yeah, you're right, it is later here than it is in the States. I'm just tired because I didn't get much sleep last night, that's all."

_England_, she'd almost forgotten about that. Godric had glamoured her mother into thinking she'd left to live with her dad, in London. She was supposed to be on the other side of the Atlantic by now.

"So I didn't wake you up?"

"No, I've been up for a couple of hours now, so it's okay."

"Thank goodness," She could almost hear her mother smiling through the phone, "So how come you didn't get much sleep last night? Were you going out? Oh! You already have a British boyfriend, don't you! I'm so excited! I'll have to meet him sometime…"

"Mom!" Norah exclaimed, chuckling lightly.

"Right, not my place," Anna chided herself, "Besides, I really didn't call you to give you the third degree about your new British boyfriend, and inter-continental phone-calls cost tons of money…"

"So maybe you'd better cut to the chase?" Norah teased.

"Yes, exactly," her mother chuckled, "And it is a fantastic chase honey. I've got some great news for you!"

"Yeah?"

"Yes! Remember that London dance school you applied to?"

"The London Contemporary Dance School? Sure…" She had a sneaking suspicion where this conversation was going.

"They sent someone to come and watch your performance. I just got a call from them. They said they a_dored_ your solo at the recital, and guess what?"

"What?" Norah answered, unable to wipe the giant grin off her face.

"They're letting you audition with them!" Anna exclaimed.

"Seriously?" Norah asked incredulously. It had been her first choice for a dance school.

"Yes!"

"Oh. My. God."

"I know, right? I'll e-mail you the date and the contact information. But honey, I'm so proud of you!"

"Thanks mom." Norah grinned, her situation all but forgotten.

"I have to go now, I don't think I'll be able to handle a phone -bill of over two-hundred dollars," Anna joked, "But first, you have to promise me you'll kick some serious butt at the audition."

"I promise, mom. Bye!

"Bye hon, love you!"

With that, the line went dead. Norah let out a happy squeak, and without a second thought burst out of her room. Godric had to know the good news as soon as possible. She practically skipped through the hallway and down the flight of stairs, only barely able to keep herself from singing out loud.

On the first floor, she heard voices coming out of the library. Without any sort of warning, she half-ran into the room.

"Godric, Godric! Guess what I just-"

She stopped dead in her tracks. In the library, there were at least twenty vampires, sprawled out on the couches. Every single one of them had turned his head at her sudden interruption. Twenty pairs of eyes were staring intently at her, with twenty sets of animal-like fangs to go with the eyes. Far more disturbing than those fangs, even more disturbing than feeling like a sandwich in a room full of starving people, was the sight that waited for her in the center of the room.

At ease on the very same couch as the one they'd fallen asleep on together the first day she'd spent at his house, was Godric. On his lap, a young girl had made herself _very_ comfortable. She couldn't be much over twenty. His fangs were very obviously buried in the girl's pale throat. What was worse, judging by the woman's moaning and squirming, she appeared to be enjoying herself v_ery_ much.

"Oh, my god…" Norah managed, feeling nauseatedous.

At her entrance, Godric had lifted his mouth from the woman's neck. He was staring at Norah, fangs still out, blood trickling down his chin and onto his usually immaculate white shirt. He looked like he'd just stumbled out of a horror-movie.

Without another word, Norah turned and escaped the library as fast as she could.

She was in desperate need of a bathroom.

* * *

**I literally just realized how mean this chapter is :p I didn't write anything for what feels like _ages_ and then I dare give you guys _this_? Sorry!**

**But, you know, life with a vampire is never going to be easy ;)**

**Huge thank you to Treewitch703, as usual, for being the awesome person that she is and making all of my jibberish readable ;)**

**Next chapter has actually already been written, and is currently being reviewed by my wonderful beta (I know, I've been insanely productive, right? ;)) so you'll get that soon :D**

**Reviews are always _very_ much appreciated! I swear, they're even better than cookies ;)**

**x**

**TheSilverKey**


	18. Chapter 18: The other way around

**Hey guys :) **

**So, here's the chapter (hopefully some of) you have been waiting for. I have a quick question, though: is there anybody out there still following this story? I've gotten one review for the last chapter (THANK YOU DARKANGEL, YOU'RE AWESOME!), and while I really don't want to sound ungrateful, I'd like to know I'm still writing for a _couple_ of interested people. Chapter 19 has already been written and is on its way to my beta, so that'll definitely be up soon, but if I see that interest in this story has dissapeared (I know it wouldn't be to surprising, what with it haven taken so long), I'll just give you (anybody who's still following) the post-it version of the plot and be done with it.**

**Major thanks to Treewitch703, as usual, and enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 18: The other way around:

Norah barely made it to the bathroom in time.

Desperately trying to keep her hair back with one hand, she found herself throwing up every bit of food she'd eaten that day. The image of Godric, with blood smeared on his face staring blankly up from that ho's neck, kept replaying in her mind. Each time she thought about it, a new wave of sickness roiled through her body.

After a few minutes, she heard a soft knock on the bathroom door.

"Norah?" Godric sounded extremely worried, "Norah, are you okay?"

_Okay_? No, of course she wasn't _okay_! She'd just seen him with his fangs deep in some random girl's throat, how could she _possibly_ be okay?

She opened her mouth, about to snap at him, but before she could say anything, she started gagging again.

"Norah?" He sounded like he was panicking, "Norah, I'm coming in!"

Before she could tell him to _stay the hell out of the bathroom_ he was beside her, awkwardly trying to find some way to help her.

"Godverdomme,"He muttered. It sounded like a curse to Norah, even though she'd never heard the language before.

He finally settled for holding back her hair for her while stroking her back. She glared at him, in as much as it was possible to glare while throwing up, but it did seem to work. The petting immediately stopped.

After what felt like an eternity, the retching finally ebbed. She pulled her hair determinately away from Godric's hand and stumbled over to the sink. Quickly, in an effort to get rid of the gross taste in her mouth, she downed a glass of water. She splashed a bit of cold water on her face, trying to freshen up a bit, before she turned to face Godric. He still had that girl's blood dripping down his chin.

"What on earth did I just see?"

"Norah, I'm so sorry, I-" He started.

"No, Godric, seriously," She cut him off, "I don't want your apologies. Just… What the hell _was_ that?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, but didn't answer her.

"You were feeding off of that girl, weren't you?"

"I was," he sighed, "But you have to understand, I really didn't have a choice…"

"You didn't have a _choice_?" She spat, "What, was she forcing your fangs into her skin? That must be the worst excuse I've ever heard."

"No, no," he protested, "It wasn't the _girl _who was forcing me to bite her. It was-"

"_Not _the girl?" Norah interrupted, "Oh, I get it, the other vampires in the room did it, didn't they? All the other vampires, none of whom were actually biting anybody, were forcing you to suck that girl dry. Of course. Why didn't _I _think of that!"

Godric winced at the sharp sarcasm in her voice.

"Norah, you have to understand," he pleaded, "Vampire politics are different from human politics. I have to show my underlings that I am still the one in charge."

"What?" Norah mocked, "You're two thousand years old, and you still have to show off in order to see who's the boss? What are you, a bunch of animals?"

At that, Godric almost lost it, in as much as the calm vampire boy _could_ lose it.

"Yes Norah, that's exactly what we are!" He was practically yelling at her, and it frightened her to no end, "You of all humans should understand that! As vampires, we are vile, vindictive and cruel creatures, who care about nothing but our own amusement and our own needs. The only way I can make those creatures out there listen to me is by making them believe I am just as cruel as they are. Some of the vampires out there are more than five hundred years my senior, do you think they would listen to me if I didn't make my voice count? Do you think I would be biting that girl if I saw any other option?"

"I-I'm sorry." Norah managed to stutter. She'd never been so afraid of Godric as she was right at that moment. She could tell he was hurt, angry and very, _very_ unstable, and it scared the living daylights out of her.

"Do you think I _enjoyed_ biting that girl?" Godric continued, not paying attention to what she said, "Biting that girl, after I've been trying to convince you for _weeks_ now that not every single vampire out there is a complete monster?"

Shocked, Norah noticed something rolling down Godric's cheek. It looked like a tear, a dark crimson tear. _Blood._

"But now you know as well," Godric continued, seemingly unaware of his eerie tears, "We _are _monsters, and-"

"Godric!" Norah interrupted him, her fear replaced with worry. He immediately stopped talking, "Are you alright?"

"What do you mean?" He asked, confused.

"You- You're bleeding…" She said shakily, "From your eye…"

"Oh." He said, deflated, and he quickly started wiping at the blood. He looked more than a bit embarrassed. "Look, I'm sorry about the yelling," he muttered quietly. His anger seemed to have gone as abruptly as it had come.

"Don't worry about it," she said, letting out a hoarse chuckle, much to her own surprise, "It's a nice change, you yelling at me instead of the other way around."

Godric looked up at her, slightly stunned. It was a rather macabre sight, the teenage boy, covered in blood, both his own and his latest victim's, staring at her with a blank expression.

"You've only made the problem worse," She half-laughed, "Here, let me give it a try."

She picked up a washcloth and held it under the faucet for a bit.

"Is that what you think?" She asked him, without turning to face him, "That I see you as a monster?"

"Don't you?" He asked hesitantly, "I mean, after what you just saw…"

"I don't think you're a monster, Godric," She said, sighing as she turned around, "I know you're a vampire, which means I know what you eat. I was just a bit… disgusted when I saw you actually feeding off of somebody… She seemed to be enjoying herself, though," she teased.

Godric smiled weakly at her.

"But you know that that is who I am, don't you? You know that I've been feeding off of humans, killing them even, for over two thousand years now?"

He looked at her cautiously, as if he was afraid that that realization might make her run away screaming.

"I do know that," She assured him. She gently started to wipe away the bloodstains on his face with the wet washcloth, "But I also know that you're the vampire that saved me when all the other ones seemed to be out to kill me. I know that you're the one who let me stay at your house when mine was too dangerous. And I know that you're the one who doesn't kick my butt anytime I go mental on him, but instead you manage to stay nice, and be patient. So all in all, I don't think you're that bad." She ended her little speech with a wink, attempting to lighten the situation.

Godric didn't look convinced.

"And as far as the feeding goes," Norah added, "I'd be a hypocrite to be angry at you for that. I eat meat almost every single day, and I can't say that the meat I eat is 'produced' under the best circumstances. I know that those animals are abused and over-fed before they are slaughtered, and yet I still eat them. I also know that, no matter how creepy it sounds, humans are like cows to vampires. And at least your cow seemed to be enjoying herself," She half-joked, "So until the day I become a vegetarian, I promise I won't bother you about your feeding-habits. As long as you promise that I'll never _ever_ have to see something like that again. Because no matter how open minded I'm trying to be here, it still looks nasty."

He simply stared at her for a couple of moments, as she tried to rinse the washcloth in the sink.

"You must be one of the strangest humans I have met in my entire existence," he managed eventually.

"I'll take that as a compliment," She smiled, as she handed him a towel.

She sat on the edge of the bathtub and gestured for him to join her.

"So, about what I was going to tell you…" she started as he sat next to her.

"Yes, why were you downstairs?"

"My mom called."

"Oh…"

"No, not like that," she smiled, "It was actually a very nice conversation. She called me about some news she'd gotten."

"Important news?"

"_Very_ important news," she said, smiling.

"And good news as well, apparently?"

"Yup, _very_ good news," She couldn't wipe the huge grin off her face, "So I'll just get right on telling you. Do you know what the London Contemporary Dance School is?"

"Yes, vaguely."

"It's a dance school, in London obviously, and it's a pretty prestigious one as well. It has always been my dream to be accepted into LCDS, and guess what?"

"What?" Godric asked, smiling at her enthusiasm.

"Well, I applied for a scholarship there in January. They sent someone to come watch the recital, and now they're letting me audition with them!" She squeaked happily, "Which means that, if I do it well, I might be able to go study there!"

"Well done, Norah," he said, smiling widely.

"Thanks," She grinned, "I'm so excited!"

"As well you should be! When do the auditions start?"

"The first round of auditions is in August," She said, still smiling.

"So, about a month from now?" Godric asked.

She nodded. It was odd to think she'd be leaving Godric's house so soon, even though she hadn't actually lived there for a long time.

"Norah, please don't take this the wrong way, but I think it might be best if you left a bit sooner," he said tentatively.

"Why?"

"With the Great Revelation coming up, I don't think it's a good idea for you to stay in this house. There will be more 'gatherings' like the one you walked in on today, and I don't think I'll be able to keep you safe every single night."

"Okay…" she tried to keep her voice neutral, not wanting him to know how much it was hurting her that he wanted her to leave, "When should I go?"

"Maybe next week?"

"Sure… Okay," she muttered.

"I'm sorry Norah," Godric said as he was standing up, "About what happened today, and about having to ask you to leave. I really am."

"Don't worry about it," she smiled weakly at him, "I'm a big girl, I can handle this."

He smiled at her as he stood up and made his way to the door.

"Godric, one more thing," she called out to him, "You might want to change your shirt before you go back to your 'meeting'."

He looked down at his gruesomely blood-stained shirt and smiled.

"Yes, you're right, I probably should."

"Goodnight Godric."

"Goodnight."

With that, he closed the bathroom door behind him.

* * *

**Quick question at then end of the chapter: Do you guys think the yelling-bit is a bit too much out of character for Godric? I sort of like the idea of the stoic vampire getting all riled up because of our human Norah, but what do you guys think? Leave a review and let me know ;)**

**x**

**TheSilverKey**


	19. Chapter 19: Preparations

**Hey you guys :)**

**I just wanted to apologize for being such a whiny little b*tch in my last A/N :p I just got a bit insecure about the story, but with all the reviews I got from you lot of awesome people, my needy self is satisfied once again ;) SO THANK YOU ALL!**

**Another big thank you, as usual, to treewitch703. You would not believe the amount of awkward mistakes I made in writing this chapter, and she got them all out for me (and here I was thinking I had some sort of idea of how the English language works ;))**

**Anyway, I'm not exactly satisfied about my writing here. There's lots of dialogue, and that's not exactly my forté, but I tried...**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 19:Preparations:

"Hey Dad," It was only five more days until her departure for London, but she still hadn't gotten around to actually telling her dad she'd be there.

"Hi hun, how are you?" His British accent was so thick it made her smile.

"I-… I'm fine, I guess…" She started awkwardly, "… How about you?"

"Oh, I'm just fantastic, love! I have to say, it's great to hear your voice again."

"Same here," She said, still smiling at the endearment, "And, um, you might hear my voice a lot more in the future…"

"What's that?"

"Well, do you still live in London?" She had no idea how else to start this conversation.

"Sure thing, couldn't leave this city if I wanted to." He sounded slightly embarrassed, but Norah couldn't help but chuckle.

"Oh, right, how's the boyfriend doing?" She teased.

"He's great honey, as usual," she could practically hear him smiling, "He actually got a job with Times magazine last week!"

"And you didn't call me to let me know?" She scolded.

"Sorry, sorry hon. I was going to tell you sometime soon, but it kind of slipped my mind with all that's been going on."

"Dad, you're already forgiven," she laughed, "But only if you congratulate him for me."

"Will do. Now, why exactly did you call me? Something about hearing your voice more in the future?"

"Well," She started, nervously pulling at the hem of her shirt, "Do you remember what the London Contemporary Dance School is?"

"LCDS? Sure, that's that dance school you always dreamt of going to, right?" Suddenly, he gasped in realization, "Norah, don't tell me you-"

"I got an audition!" She squeaked happily.

"Good job! I knew you could do it!"

"Thanks, Dad," She laughed, "Now, about what I called you for-"

"Oh, I get it, you need a house to crash while you're in London."

"I do," she sighed, "Would you mind if I burden you with my girly female-ness some more?"

"Baxley," he started sternly, "You know your girly female-ness is _always_ welcome in London."

"You sure I won't be a problem?" She asked, trying to sound a bit more serious this time around.

"I'm sure," Her dad said sincerely, "Now when are you coming?"

"Um… In five days?" She started carefully, before adding: "If that's okay with you guys, of course."

"Well, that _is_ a bit soon, but I'm sure Thomas and I will be able to handle it."

"Thank you so much, Dad," she said warmly.

"Anytime, love. So, when do I get to pick you up from Heathrow?"

"Seriously, dad, you don't need to pick me up. A friend's driving me from the airport." Or, more probably, _flying _her from the airport. Godric had insisted he'd 'accompany' her all the way to England. Even though there was no way he could possibly get on the plane with her, since trans-Atlantic flights never passed entirely in the dark, and of course, sunlight was deadly.

"A _friend _is driving you from the airport? As in an _American _friend? Norah, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if that _friend_ of yours is flying all the way across the Atlantic just to drive you from the airport, the poor thing's more than a friend."

"Dad, seriously," Norah tried to interrupt him, feeling her cheeks heat up.

"So, boy or girl?" Her dad questioned, ignoring her protest completely.

"It's a guy," Norah laughed, "And he's not American, he's European." Technically, it wasn't a lie. Godric had been once been a European. A Celt, to be more specific, some 2000 years ago.

"_European,_ no less," Her dad teased, "And will I get to meet this _European_ friend of yours?"

"Not if you continue acting like this, you won't!"

"Sorry hun," he chuckled, "I promise I'll behave."

"Right, of course," she rolled her eyes, even though her dad couldn't see her, "Anyway, I should probably hang up. I really can't afford long inter-national calls right now."

"Okay, be safe and say hello to your mom from me."

"I will," she swallowed thickly, "Love you, dad."

"Love you too, hon."

The line went dead. Norah smiled lightly, the conversation had gone better than she'd expected it to.

"Who were you calling?"

She looked up quickly and smiled when she saw Godric, leaning against the door frame of her room .

"My dad. I was going to have to tell him about moving some time or other."

Godric nodded, "How did it go?"

"Fairly well, actually," she grinned, "Apparently I'm a bit more welcome than I'd thought I'd be on such a short notice."

Godric smiled at her "Wouldn't have expected any thing else. May I come in?"

"Sure," She patted the bed next to her, "Make yourself at home."

His lips quirked in a smile at her joke, and quickly moved to sit beside her.

"If you don't mind my asking, how come your dad lives in England?"

"Oh, right, I guess I never did tell you about that," she mused, "It's a bit of a long story, though."

"I have all the time in the world," he smiled.

"Right, I can imagine," she chuckled, "I guess I'll start at the beginning, then. When my mom was about twenty years old, she went to England on a fellowship for a year. She studied bio-engineering, and apparently, an English university had a really good bio-engineering department. She'd only been abroad for about a month when she met my dad. He was a psych major at Cambridge, and they met at some sort of university party. They had only been dating for about a week when 'disaster struck', so to speak" She pointedly ignored Godric's disapproval at the way she'd described herself, "My mom always said that she was madly in love with my dad at the time, and that because of that I was a 'love-baby' as they say. As lovely as that euphemism might sound, the fact remains that, embarrassingly enough, both of them were kind of drunk that night… Which is probably why they'd forgotten to use protection." she wryly commented, "Three weeks later, my mom realized started to suspect she might be pregnant. she was pregnantTurns out that she actually warns. Imagine what a shock that must've been for her, all alone in a unfamiliar country with an unplanned pregnancy and with a guy she'd only known for about a month. She says she never, not even once, considered an abortion, even though my dad apparently did suggest it once. He says he can still see the scars from where the vase hit him that night," she chuckled, and heard Godric do the same beside her, "Guess the throwing is genetic… Anyway, nine months later, she had me. She'd tried to stay at the university as long as possible, right up until the week I was born. Dad says he'd practically begged her to stay home and get some rest, but she's very stubborn about doing things _her _ way, so I can't imagine he was very successful. Eventually, she only failed one of her classes, a fact which to this date, she still regularly brags about.

Anyway, after I was born, mom decided she wanted to move back to the States. She says she couldn't possibly deny her parents the sight of their first granddaughter, and so she flew over as soon as possible. At first, my dad followed her. The two of them moved into an apartment in Dallas, and I suppose they were happy for a while. My mom, dad, and little baby me; it was the only time that we were actually a complete family.

I don't really know if my dad still loved my mom at that time, maybe he'd never _really_ loved her at all, or if he just stayed with her because he felt he had some sort of responsibility towards me. Fact is, the happy-family-time didn't really last that long. Soon enough, my dad realized that he would never really be happy with my mom, or with any woman, for that matter. About three years after the move to Dallas, things started to go badly. My dad had taken a job at the University there, which is where he met Thomas for the first time. Thomas was just a student back then, but he was about to graduate, so he and my dad are barely two years apart. It became very clear very quickly how much more dad wanted to be with Thomas than with mom. He says he tried to fight it for months, feeling guilty about my mom and me, I guess such feelings just aren't that easily put aside.

My mom, of course, noticed after a while. I mean, she's rather observant and Thomas and my dad aren't exactly the most subtle people in the world. Being the woman she is, and you should know how she is, you've met her," Godric nodded with a brief smile, "she practically kicked him out of the house so he could go and live with, as she puts it 'the obvious love of his life'.

Eventually, my dad agreed, because there simply was no way to say no to my mother. He left, and when after graduation,Thomas moved back to his home country, which happened to be England, my dad followed him.

I was barely four when he left, yet he still apologizes for being such a 'crappy, no-good father' every single chance he gets. He doesn't need to apologize, though. Even though I do miss my dad sometimes, I understand why he left when I see him and Thomas together. They're just so much happier than they could ever be on their own. And he does try to be a dad to me: I visit him every summer vacation, and he comes over to the States every chance he gets. He calls me every week, so he can keep up with what's going on in my life, and he tries to support me whenever he can, even though he is on another continent.

I have a lot of friends who have it worse, even though their dad is still around…

Anyway, my mom hasn't really dated since he left. I suspect because she's afraid to put me through the whole 'father-figure-leaving' thing again, even though she'd never admit that to my face." She sighed and looked up at Godric, who seemed to have been listening intently the whole time, "So, um… I suppose that's why my mom and my dad live on completely different continents."

The room went quiet for what felt like eternity. Godric didn't move an inch, and the deep crease between his eyebrows told her that whatever he was thinking, it probably wasn't good.

She was almost too afraid to breathe, not wanting to disturb him from his thoughts, but on the inside, she was practically boiling.

_I swear,_ she fumed to herself_, if he _dares _to have a problem with the way my dad is, with the way my _family _is, I'll silver his prejudiced vampire__ face myself, no matter how good it looks, and I-_

Suddenly, her angry thoughts were cut off by the last thing she'd ever expected at that moment. Godric quietly wrapped his arms around her and wordlessly pulled her into his lap.

"Wuh-" was the only thing she could manage before her face was buried into the crook between his neck and his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Norah," he mumbled, "First, you have to grow up without your father and then, now, it's my fault you can't go to your mother either anymore. I've made a mess out of all of this and I just wish I could-"

"Hold up there, mister," Norah grumbled. She didn't bother to move, even though she knew it would've gotten her point across a bit better. She was just too comfortable, "First of all: I didn't grow up without my father. As I said, he was always there when I needed him, and thanks to Thomas, I practically had two dads while growing up. Both of whom treated me like royalty every time they saw me, by the way, and what more can a girl want than _two_ men treating her like a princess? Secondly: I'm not moving to London because my mother attacked me- which, by the way, is still not your fault, but Alexander's- but because I have an audition for LCDS. I would've gone whether I'd met you or not, I've been dreaming of going there ever since I found out it existed. So would you cut out the guilt-trip and stop apologizing?"

"Sorry," Godric muttered, earning him a frustrated growl from the girl sitting in his lap.

He chuckled softly and shifted a bit so she would be more comfortable.

"So, your father is…" His voice trailed off, not sure of how to put it.

"Gay?" Norah filled in for him, "Yup. Awesomely so. Do you have a problem with that?" She lifted her face out of her neck so she could gauge his expression.

All she got from him was a cheeky grin.

"Honey," the endearment surprised her, pleasantly so, "I have known _Eric_ for over a thousand years now, do you really think any sort of sexuality could disgust me anymore?"

Her eyes widened in surprise.

"Oh, my god, Eric's _gay_?" She had to admit, she'd never actually thought about the giant man-mountain Viking as _not_ being straight, but now that she thought about it…

Godric chuckled "Not necessarily. I suppose you could best describe Eric as being omnisexual."

"Meaning?..." She questioned, even though she kind of expected what was coming next.

"Meaning he'll…" he seemed to be looking for the right words "take anything he can get, really."

Norah couldn't help but laugh, "That _does_ really sound like Eric… So did you and he ever…?" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively at him.

The only response she got was an oddly arched eyebrow.

"You know what," she said, covering his mouth with her hands to silence him, even though he'd made no effort to speak, "I don't even _want_ to know what you two have been up to the past thousand years."

His laughter shook her as he tightened his arms around her a little bit.

"I'm not '_gay_', as you so eloquently put it, if that's what you're asking."

She resisted the urge to say _good_, and immediately mentally chided herself for ever having had that urge. She was talking to a _vampire_, for crying out loud, not a seventeen year old potential love interest. You were not supposed to _flirt _with two-thousand year olds.

That's when it hit her that she was still sitting in his lap. _Well, so much for not flirting with people over a hundred times your age…_

Awkwardly, she shifted a bit, but he wouldn't loosen his grip on her. She knew full well that there was no way of getting out of his grip unless he let her.

Not that she exactly minded their current position.

"Godric, does it ever bother you that I'm only seventeen?" She blurted out before her brain caught up with her mouth.

"Hmm?"

"I mean," she sighed, no use in going back now, "Don't I sort of annoy you with my teen habits? You're practically two thousand years my senior, I must seem so childish to you…"

He closed his eyes and frowned a bit.

"Actually, it doesn't bother me at all. I was still a teenager when I was changed, Norah, but ever since I became a vampire, nobody has ever treated me like a teenager. I was always either 'that monster' or this sort of ageless creature that had to be treated with enormous amounts of respect. You're the first one in over two thousand years to treat me for what I actually am: a teenager." He cracked one eye open and smiled briefly at her, "You're also the first one in over a thousand years I've seen throw a _tantrum_." He chuckled when she slapped him on the shoulder playfully, and continued: "It's refreshing. And oddly comforting."

"How about you?" He questioned, eying her face intently, "Does my age bother you? Do you notice it a lot?"

"Oh no, grandpa, not at all," She teased with a wink, "But really, it doesn't bother me quite as much as I thought it would. When I really think about how old you are, it does sort of leave me in awe, I suppose. I can't possibly imagine what it must be like to live for that amount of time. It fascinates me a bit, but oddly, it doesn't bother me. In a way, you _are _sort of ageless, I guess. I don't notice it as much as I used to either. You used to talk like you were from another century or something- which you are, obviously- but I think I've started to grow on you, you've started talking more and more like a teenager."

He smiled lightly at her, and quietly pressed his lips into her hair.

"Thank you, Norah," he murmured.

"For what?" She asked, startled.

He shrugged lightly "For everything, I suppose."

She was about to ask more, when a knock on the door interrupted her.

"I don't know what you two are up to," Eric's voice came from the other side of the door, as if he hadn't been able to hear every single word they'd said, "And I hate to be a party-pooper, but I'll have to leave in about an hour if I want to reach Louisiana before sunrise. And really, I'd hate getting singed on the way there."

There was a short pause as Norah quickly untangled herself from Godric.

"Hello?" Eric questioned impatiently, "I'd like to say goodbye to my maker?"

She tried to smooth her clothing out a little, feeling oddly embarrassed as she moved to sit on the other side of the bed.

"Come on in, you impatient little twit," she called out as soon as she was ready, earning a humpf of amusement from the other vampire in the room.

Eric was inside the room with the door shut behind him before she could blink.

"So…" She started, slightly confused, "Louisiana?"

* * *

**So tell me, did I screw up the dialogue completely? I sure hope not :p**

**I'll try to write again this sunday, but I don't know if I'll get around to it. The BBC speaking awards are this weekend, and I'm participating, so I won't have that much time to do anything else...**

**Oh, and click that little blue link right there, you know you want to ;)**

**x**

**TheSilverKey**


	20. Chapter 20: Life in London

**Whelp, that was a terrifyingly long break, wasn't it? Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry about that! I was just really, genuinly busy :( I got a job as a journalist, started organizing a festival, had a veeery packed summer vacation etc. ...**

**But I'm back now! Yay? Next chapter is finished and everything, there aren't too many of them left anyway, I'll upload it tomorrow!**

**As always, grand applause for the lovely treewitch703, check out her stuff at .com**

**Trust me**

**do it**

**You won't be disappointed :D**

**Anyway, on with the story! We left Norah - if you remember that - right before she was to leave for London...**

**Enjoy!**

**Chapter 20: Life in London:**

"Ugh, I still can't believe my mom is forcing me to go to a 'family dinner' on a Friday night _again_," Louise groaned as she slung her bag over her shoulder, "I swear to God, the woman is purposely trying to destroy my social life…"

Norah chuckled as she quickly stuffed her dance clothes away. It wasn't the first time that her friend was particularly unhappy about her mothers' poor choice of a family night.

"Aww come on, Louise, it can't be that bad."

"You don't know my mother, Norah. The woman is the personification of knit baby-hats and cushions with inspirational quotes embroidered onto them. Trust me, it _is _actually that bad."

Norah shrugged, "I always thought those pillows were actually pretty cool. And I hear that knitting is all the rage, again…"

Louise glared at her.

"So are Uggs, that doesn't mean that they're acceptable. Besides, we never actually do anything at family dinners. We don't even talk, we just sit there and watch the news, over and over and over again. There's only so many times you can listen to Chris Fawkes trying to get the viewers excited over the weather…"

Norah just smiled as she walked passed her friend and out of the dance studio, "No worries, Louise. Something tells me that tonight will be a little bit different."

_You have no idea._

Tonight was the night. For months she'd been both anticipating and dreading this night. Tonight, she'd force her dad and Thomas to watch 'the telly' with her, and then they would find out. They (and the rest of the world along with them) were about to make the same mind-boggling, earth-shattering discovery that she'd made so many months ago, and she had no idea how they would take it.

"The Great Revelation".

That's what Godric had always called it, whenever they'd talked about it (those times were few and far between, Godric wasn't really allowed to tell her that much). It was the night that the vampires would jump out of the moldy coffins where they'd been hiding for God knows how long and announce themselves to the world. And it was petrifying.

To Norah, it was obvious that it was coming. Even if Godric hadn't given her the exact time (and even a recommendation as to which channel would – in his opinion – be the best one to watch), she supposed she would've guessed. Over the past few months, there had been a noticeable increase in extremely pale people out on the streets. If you watched some of them closely, every now and then you would catch a glimpse of fang, a movement that was too quick to be human or the eerie stillness that only the already-dead seemed to be able to accomplish.

And then there were the stores. Norah was pretty sure that a lot of them were working with the vampires. She would see stacks and stacks of crates labeled "TB" in murky alleyways next to certain supermarkets. When she'd come back from a particularly late practice, she'd see suspiciously pale people park their trucks in front of smaller stores and stock them with the artificial blood, carrying more crates at once than should ever be humanly possible.

One night, when she was on the phone with Godric, she'd told him as much.

"You know, there's been a suspicious lack of wood in London lately."

There had been a short silence, "_What do you mean?_"

"I meant that, randomly, someone decided that all wooden benches in the city should be replaced with metal ones. There was something in the papers about it, something about rotting being a danger to the humans who sit on the benches."

"_Oh_?" The amusement in his voice had been obvious.

"Wanna know what I think?"

"_Always_."

"I think someone's hiding stake material. God knows that one broken bench could be the death of any of you guys."

"_Does it scare you?"_ he'd asked, "_The preparations. It's getting closer now."_

"Scare me?" She'd scoffed – save for her near-catatonic reaction when she'd first heard the news, she'd always pretended to be completely unfazed about the whole thing. Of course Godric had always seen right through that act – "I think it's hilarious. I'd always gotten the idea that vampires were stealthy, but this lack of subtlety could put a bull in a china shop to shame ."

"_Eloquent as always_," Godric had chuckled, "_But you only see because you _know_, Norah. The rest of humankind is utterly oblivious to what is coming_."

She'd been silent for a very long time.

"_It scares you, doesn't it? That you are the only one who _knows_?_"

"To death, Godric," she'd finally admitted, "I don't think I've ever been this frightened."

"_I'm sorry Norah_," he'd sighed, "_I truly am."_

"Watch it, honey. If you keep thinking that hard, you might just hurt yourself."

She laughed as she turned to face the woman behind her. She hadn't heard her coming, but that was really no surprise.

"I swear, sometimes I think you're purposely trying to give me a heart-attack," she greeted with a smile.

"It's my pleasure, babe," The woman said. She even curtseyed slightly.

"Hi, Pam."

"Good evening, Norah."

She remembered the first time she'd met Pam. Godric had been there as well, and he'd introduced her to Eric's-child-who-was-now-her-babysitter.

"Whoa ," was all she'd been able to say, "You sort of look like a more bad-ass version of that video game-girl."

There had been a beat of silence, in which Norah mentally face-palmed herself for her stupidity.

The vampire, however, had suddenly smiled (in a _very _fang-y way), "Thank you. I suppose you could be a modern version of Lillian Gish."

She'd never heard that name before, but smiled nonetheless "Umm, thanks?"

Ever since then, her and the female vampire got on like a house on fire.

"Are you excited about tonight?"

"Why shouldn't I be? Vampires out of the coffin, now we'll have to work even harder to hide who we truly are," Pam responded wryly. She'd done just about everything she could possibly do to make her opinion on the Great Revelation clear to Norah. She did _not _agree. At all.

Norah chuckled humorlessly, "No need for you to get so pessimistic, Pam. It's just… It's a big night, I'm sure you'd rather be spending it with Eric, over in Louisiana."

The last time she'd seen Eric, she'd still been in America, with Godric. He had been more excited than she'd ever seen a vampire be before (which didn't turn out to be all that excited). He'd explained to her (well, he'd mainly been explaining it to Godric, but she'd been there at the time) that he'd been offered a job as a sheriff by the queen of Louisiana. Sheriff meaning –as far as Norah understood it – that he'd be the queen's way of exercising her power in a certain area of Louisiana. Which probably meant that Eric simply got to play boss over a whole bunch of vampires – which suited him just fine.

"Norah, darling," Pam definitely had a thing for endearments, "Eric ordered me to stay here with you. So I will."

Norah arched an eyebrow at her, and Pam chuckled.

"That, and I've always wanted to see what my Sire would look like on television." When Norah laughed, she added "What? If he looks even better than he does in person, there is no way that I'm missing that performance."

Norah just laughed at that, as they continued to walk back to her house. Everywhere, she saw flashes of pallid skin and movements too fluid for human kind.

Her stomach twisted into nervous knots as she realized that the city was buzzing with un-dead life tonight. All of them there to watch humankind be thrown head-first and unprepared into a brand new reality.

**Reviews are - as usual - extremely welcome! Whether they're good, bad, horrible, "omg get your crappy story off of my internet, you incompetent trollop" (though you might want to phrase it a bit more constructively than that) , or anything in between: fire away :)**

**x**

**TheSilverKey**


	21. Chapter 21: the Revelation

**DUN DUN DUUUUUN**

**You know what time it is! (obviously, this isn't the most subtle title I've ever given a chapter...) Excitiiiing ;) This isn't exactly a long chapter, but I didn't see it play out in any other way, so there ya go!**

**I was actually going to write the next chapter today, but then Homestuck and I sort of didn't... It will be up soon though, I pinky-swear ;)**

**Enjoy!**

"Hey honey, hello Pam," her dad greeted them when they walked into the house.

Norah never even tried to keep Pam a secret (save for that little fact about Pam which meant that she could probably kill the entire family in under five minutes – only if she actually wanted to, of course). Norah's dads now saw Pam as a family friend, which worked out great today. Maybe they'd be more at ease with the idea of vampires if they and liked one already.

Hopefully.

Probably not.

"Hi, dad," Norah greeted back, "What are we eating tonight?"

"If it's fine by you, I thought we would just order pizza."

"Yeah sure, sounds great," she plopped down on the couch and pulled Pam down next to her, "Where's Thomas?"

"He's just upstairs, I he'll probably be down any second now."

"Great," Norah mumbled, shifting nervously in her seat. A quick look at the clock told her she had about ten minutes to prepare her dads for the news.

"Breathe, Norah," Pam smiled at her. It didn't really help that Pam's smile must've been the single most terrifying smile she'd ever seen; though she guessed it was the thought that counted. She took a deep breath.

"Dad? Thomas? Could you two come down here for a sec?"

Even though she'd taken to referring to the two men in her family as "dads", it would be very confusing to call both of them that to their faces. Which was why Thomas would simply have to stay Thomas, even though that said nothing about the role he played in her life.

She pushed her hair out of her face and smiled nervously at the two men who'd just entered the living room.

Pam hissed something that sounded suspiciously like: "Don't look so constipated."

She tried to relax a bit. By the looks on her dads' faces, she failed miserably.

"Okay," She started, "Umm, there is something I need to tell you two. I don't really know how to put this, so… So just hear me out, okay?"

Her dads simply nodded.

"About five minutes from now, there will be one of those "breaking news"-broadcasts on television. I can't really tell you what it's about just yet, but obviously you'll find out soon enough. The.. The thing that the broadcast is about, it's –" She frowned, "It's nothing to be too worried about. There is absolutely no need to freak out over what you're about to be told. Umm, so yeah, what I'm trying to say is… Please don't have a heart-attack or something? Umm… yeah," she finished, feeling awkward, running a hand through her hair.

She could see that her dad was about to ask a question, but just as he opened his mouth, he was cut off by the announcer on television.

"We interrupt this program for breaking news that we are sure will change the world. The show will continue as usual after this broadcast."

And all of a sudden, Norah felt like she might just throw up.

"You _knew about this_?" Her dad had turned around incredulously as soon as the broadcast had finished. He'd turned extremely pale, and it was sort of worrying Norah; "You _knew _about this, and you didn't tell us?"

Norah shrugged helplessly "Would you have believed me?" Without waiting for an answer, she charged on "Because I think you would have probably locked me away in some kind of mental institution."

"Yeah, but… _Vampires_," her dad seemed to have as much trouble with the word as she'd had at first, "I mean, a little heads-up would've been nice…"

Thomas spoke up then: "_How_ do you even know about this?"

_Ah, the dreaded question_, she thought to herself. Instead of answering, Norah simply gestured at Pam.

Both of her dads turned their wide-eyed stares to the woman sitting next to her. Pam smiled her freakishly sweet smile and winked at her. She actually _winked_. Was she insane?

"She knows because she's met my Sire," she stated simply.

"Your… Your Sire?"

"Yes, my Sire. It's a term for the man who made me a vampire."

"Hold on," her dad threw both of his hands in front of him, "Are you trying to say that _you, _Pam, a_re one of them_?"

Instead of answering the question, Pam simply decided to flash some fang. Norah couldn't help but roll her eyes, despite the situation. Eric had done exactly the same thing not twenty minutes ago on television. They certainly had a flair for the more dramatic.

"What. The. Fuck," Was all Thomas could manage.

Her dad didn't even get as far, and just stared, mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for oxygen.

She supposed that this was the best-case scenario. She was just happy nobody had started to look for garlic yet.

Outside, they could hear the first sirens pierce through the silence of the night. Somewhere down the street, there was a sound like a window shattering into a billion pieces.

Norah dropped her head into her hands. She could only pray that London would calm down by morning.

**Reviews are always appreciated!**

**Again, shout-out to the lovely treewitch703, who you have to thank for the readability of all of this :) Go and find her work at .com. Seriously, what are you still doing here? Go now, shoo!**

**(though of course, the even better option is to leave a review with your thoughts about the chapter and ****_then _****hurry to her livejournal...)**

**x**

**TheSilverKey**


	22. Chapter 22: Back Home

**Almost there you guys (it's about time :p) **

**Enjoy!**

It had been three years.

Three years since she left her home town, her mother and her friends behind. Three years since she moved to England and enrolled at LCDS. Three years since she fled her own house for a reason that's so messed up that she _wished_ it were made up.

It's been two months since she last talked to the man who caused all of that.

She's lying on her bed at her dad's house. It's late at night, and she's just finished packing up her bags. She'd always told herself that, once she'd graduated from LCDS, she'd move on with her life and find herself her own place to live. That's why, when she turned 20, she'd started to look for a new home. A couple of weeks ago, she'd found the perfect place.

"Don't your parents want to know why you're not moving back to America?"

She hadn't even heard Pam come in - not that she ever really did, she swore vampires were even worse than ninjas - but there she was, standing next to her bed looking disdainfully at the unfolded clothes she'd stuffed into a suitcase.

"Yeah, they asked me about that," Norah forced herself not to roll her eyes, "So I just told them the story about how I can't go back because a murderous vampire would try to find me so he can finally slaughter me just to spite my mother."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, dear," Norah managed a small smile, "But really, what did you tell them?"

"I told them what I always tell them when something like this comes up: I like London better, and I see more opportunities here."

"Did they buy that?"

"Hell if I know. I sure didn't."

"Okay," Pam went to sit down next to her, sounding as exasperated as a vampire could possibly be, "What's wrong."

"Gee, you sure sound interested," She didn't even try to stop the eye-roll anymore.

"Spill it," was the only answer she got.

Norah sighed, running a hand down her face: "It's just - It's been two months since we talked, you know? Me and Godric. He doesn't try to reach me, and he doesn't even bother to pick up his phone when I try to reach him. I could've seen this coming from a mile away, with the way he'd been acting lately, but still… I mean, I guess it's only logical that he'd get bored but-"

Pam cut her off: "Bored?"

"Yeah, sure," She sighed, "How could he not have gotten bored? He's the ancient, big-shot vampire and I'm just the stupid little mortal who'd gotten herself in the middle of something she couldn't handle. But I'm a big girl now. I can handle this."

"… This is by far the most idiotic thing I have ever heard a human say. And that says a lot."

"Shut up," She groaned, "It's no big deal, okay? I mean yeah, it hurts, but I'm a big girl and I can handle stuff like this. The only thing that confuses me is the last conversation we had."

"How so?"

"Well, I always thought Alexander would kill me if - and I quote - 'I ever set foot outside of Godric's territory'. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that London is not in fact "Godric's", or however vampires say that."

"You would be right, but what does that have to do with your last conversation?"

"Well, he said I shouldn't come back to America, that it'd be too dangerous for me. That doesn't really make any sense, does it?"

"Norah, you should understand that Godric's power... shifted during the Great Revelation. There is a whole group of vampires that suddenly rose to power - vampires who, like Nan Flannegan, function as the public face of vampire society. Godric isn't necessarily as powerful as he used to be anymore. Newborns these days seem to think fame is more important than age."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Pam sighed: "Do I really need to spell everything out for you?"

"Yes," she answered bluntly. She'd outgrown the phase where vampires could make her feel bad about her mental capacities a long time ago. Yes, they were older than her. No, that didn't mean they could make her feel like an inept toddler.

"Godric isn't as powerful anymore," Pam explained slowly, completely over-doing her articulation. It didn't bother Norah in the slightest, "So he thought he might not be able to keep you safe in America. Thanks to the vampires coming out of the coffin, Alexander would risk both a human _and_ a vampire international scandal if he tried to drain you. Even though he is incredibility pissed, he wouldn't go through the trouble of having to deal with two separate extra-vigilant Magisters and a human court, just so he can murder a mortal girl."

"Well, I'm honored he thinks I'm not important enough to be slaughtered."

"You should be," Pam dead panned.

Norah pondered that for a moment. "So, if I'm getting this right, as long as I stay here, nobody will try to kill me?"

"Not entirely. Alexander is still sending humans to do the job for him. It saves him the vampire politics and the damage to his reputation for killing a girl who's under the protection of other vampires."

Norah sat up straight, momentarily confused, "He is? How come I don't know this? Pam, you have to tell me stuff like this! I need to be prepared!"

"Like you were last time someone tried to murder you?"

"Shut up, I survived all of that," she huffed.

"Only barely. Anyway, that's what I'm here for. I keep the murderous humans at a distance."

Norah blinked at her. Of course, she'd always figured that Pam wasn't staying because she was such a fan of Norah's charming personality, but she'd never considered the vampire to be her personal body guard.

It was a weird thought.

Her phone suddenly blared out her latest ringtone.

Norah nearly threw herself across the room to pick it up, pointedly ignoring the "You seriously have Call Me Maybe as your ringtone?"-look Pam was giving her. So what if it was a shitty song, it was catchy and it did fit the whole cell phone-theme.

"Yes?"

"Hello Norah." That was a voice she hadn't heard in a long time.

"Hey Eric. Your progeny is staring at me as if I were a few sandwiches short of a picnic , so what's going on in your life?"

"A lot. We don't have time to chat, though."

He spat out the word "chat" as if it was an insult. It was nice to see that he could still be his rude old self when he wanted to.

"Well excuse you," Norah rolled her eyes, "It's actually a common practice amongst humans to, as we like to call it, "catch up" when two people haven't talked to each other for months on end."

"For Christ's sake Norah, I don't have time for your sassy bullshit."

That brought her up short. It wasn't often that Eric, master of all things snippy, passed up a chance to make someone feel stupid. She swallowed.

"What happened?"

"Have you ever heard of the Fellowship of the Sun?"

"Bat-shit crazy, scarily fanatic anti-vampire church in America?"

"That's the one."

"People have mentioned it. Why?"

"I think they have Godric."

If she hadn't been so surprised, Norah would've started laughing.

As it was, she focused on her conversation with Eric.

"What do you mean?"

"I think they kidnapped him."

_What_?

"Eric, you do realise that the Fellowship of the Sun is a human organisation, don't you?"

"Of course I do," he answered curtly.

"Godric is a 2000 year old vampire, how on earth do you think they managed to capture him? I mean, the man could literally stop a tank if he wanted to."

It was quiet for a very long time.

So long, in fact, that Norah started getting a little nervous.

"Eric? Tell me what's really going on here," She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she didn't want to acknowledge it until Eric said it out loud.

The vampire took in a shaky breath. It only served to make her more anxious.

"I think he might've gone along with them voluntarily."

Pam's mouth actually fell open in surprise. Someone was obviously listening in.

"What are they planning on doing with him?"

"They want to have a "holy bonfire at dawn"."

You could almost _taste_ the contempt in his voice.

"And I'm guessing Godric is going to be the tinder that starts the fire." Her voice was so dispassionate, she actually surprised herself.

"Yes. You seem composed about all of this."

"My mother almost slit my throat when I was seventeen. I think I've lost the ability to genuinely panic," she took a deep breath, steadying herself a bit, "But if I'm interpreting this right, you're saying Godric might want to end his existence."

There was a long silence before Norah decided she'd answer her own question.

"Obviously you do, even if you don't want to say it out loud. Why did you call me? Go into that church, rescue your maker, make sure he doesn't go outside during the day without an umbrella. End of story."

"You must be joking."

"No Eric, I'm genuinely confused. You should be saving him right now, not wasting your time informing me about what's going on! As you said, we don't have time to chat."

"Of course I'll get him out of the church, you moron. I'm talking about after that. Did you not hear me when I said I think he might want to kill himself?"

"I did! But you're his child, for fuck's sake," she was practically screaming in the receiver now, "Talk him out of it! I still don't get what you want from me!"

"What I want from you," he growled, "is that you get your ass over here and talk some sense into the guy who saved your life. What I want from you is that you keep him out of the sunlight, and that you stay with him so he won't do shit like this again."

"You want me to fly all the way to America to spend time with this guy who has ignored me for the past two months and talk him out of committing suicide. All because you think his own Child would not be able to do the job?"

"Yes."

"And you want me to move back in with him afterwards, to make sure he never gets ideas like that again?"

"Yes."

She groaned.

"Eric, how can you assume so easily that I'll just drop everything I have, the entire life I've built up here over the past three years? How did you conclude that I'd leave everything behind to save the man whose mistakes have made my life a living hell? The man that forces me to lie to my family and friends on a daily basis? And on top of that, the man who hasn't sent me a single sign of life over the past two months? Why did you make that assumption?"

He didn't miss a beat.

"Because I know you still love him the way you did when you left the country."

She swallowed.

"When's the first flight?"

**Reviews are always welcome :)**

**As usual, major thanks to treewitch703 for her wonderful help!**

**x**

**TheSilverKey**


	23. This is not a chapter - but it will be

Hey guys, long time no see!

I guess I owe you all an explanation... I know I've ignored the story for a pretty damn long time. In fact, I'd actually decided just to drop it, and never finish it. My life's been very busy lately, what with graduating high school and writing up my "thesis" and completing my application with an exchange project so I can move to Paraguay this August. I never found the time to write, and eventually I thought I'd just let it go - after all, it's been a pretty long time since Godric's actually been on the show. Or even since I've watched the show, for that matter.

However, it seems like the story didn't quite die out like I expected it to. In this month alone, I had 23 visitors to this story, and I've been getting some private messages and reviews asking me to continue writing this out.

So I will. I'm not promising anything about when or how, but I will tell you that I'll try to finish it before the end of July. It's only a couple more chapters, so that should be ok.

I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the story. And thank you for still showing your support, even after all this time. It means a lot to me that the story means something to you guys.

Hugs


End file.
